Qass. Book COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT \ , ^. >\ A / THE /black¥ater chronicle A XARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION INTO THE LA:^D of CAjSTAAK, IN RANDOLPH COUNTY, VIRGINIA, A COUNTRY FLOWING WITH WILD ANIMALS, SUCH AS PANTHERS, BEARS, WOLVES, ELK, DEER, OTTER, BADGER, &c., &c., WITH INNUMERABLE TROUT— BY FIVE ADVENTUROUS GENTLE- MEN, WITHOUT ANY AID OF GOVERNMENT, AND SOLELY BY THEIR OWN RESOURCES, IN THE SUMMER OF 1851. Si[ " €!jt ClirkB nf (fiirnfnrk." "WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM LIFE BY STROTHER. c/ (ii^^^^^ 1^ R E D F 1 E L D 110 AND 112 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 1853. f1 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, By J. S: REDFIELD, iu the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE, 13 Chambers Srreet, N. Y. THE BLACKVATER CHRONICLE CHAPTEK I. INTRODUCTORY. If the reader will take down the map of Virginia, and look at Randolph county, he will find that the Black water is a stream that makes down from the north into the Cheat river, some few miles below the point where that river is formed by the junc- tion of the Dry fork, the Laurel fork, and the Glade fork — the Shavers, or Great fork, falling in some miles below : all rising and running along the west- ern side of the Backbone of the Alleganies. The country embraced by these head-waters of the Cheat river is called "The Canaan" — a wilder- ness of broken and rugged mountains — its streams falling through deep clefts, or leaping down in great cataracts, into the Cheat, that sweeps the base of the Backbone. 6 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. It is to the Blackwater, one among the largest of these streams of the Canaan, that we purpose to take the reader. If, therefore, his fancy urges him to the venture, let him come with us. All he has to do is to set himself down in his easy-chair, and lend us his ears. By the magic of this scroll we shall take him. This Blackwater (it should be called Amberwa- ter), and north source of the Cheat, rises high up on the western slope of the Backbone, directly across from the Fairfax stone — where the head-spring of the Potomac has its source on this the eastern side of the mountain ; and it is supposed that these head- waters of the two rivers are not more than some half a mile (or mile at most) apart. The Backbone, following a general course from north to south, here turns at almost a right-angle, and takes across to the eastward some fifteen miles, when it regains its former southerly direction, thus forming a zigzag in its course. At the point where it first makes the bend to the east, a large spur — apparently the Back- bone itself — keeps straight to the south, and butts down on the Cheat, at the distance of some ten or twelve miles. Between this large spur and the point where the Backbone bends to the south again, is contained the cove of mountains which is called the Canaan. This region of country is in the very highest range of the Alleganies, lying in the main some three thousand feet above the level of the sea. rNTRODIJCTORT. 7 Until a fiew years past, the whole of the district embraced by the head-waters of the Potomac and the Cheat was as remote and inaccessible as any part of the long range of the Alleganies. ' But some few years ago, the state of Virginia constructed a graded road from Winchester to Parkersburg, which passes over the Backbone through the Potomac lim- its; and consequently this portion of the district has become opened out somewhat to the knowledge of the world, and has since been settled to a consid- erable extent. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad also passes near here — at a distance from the head- waters of the Potomac varying from ten to twenty miles. The railroad will bring all this region within a day's travel of the seaboard ; and as the country lies about the head of the Maryland glades — in themselves a source of attraction — and contains within its range many tracts of land of great fertility and beauty, it is not irrational to suppose that it will be cleared out and settled with rapidity. As it is, there is a good settlement around here already — the result, in the main, of the construc- tion of the Northwestern road. Long, however, be- fore this road was made, there was a Mr. Smith who pitched his tent in these wilds some fifty years or more ago, I am informed, and cleared out and im- proved a handsome estate for himself, lying along the Maryland shore of the Potomac, and containing some fifteen hundred acres of fine land of varied 8 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. hill and dale. The Smiths are now gone, and the estate has passed into other hands. In the older times a tavern was kept here, for the accommoda- tion of the "few people who crossed these mountains. But when the northwestern road came by, the mar- vels of a good highway were made manifest in the increased travel, that soon became too great for the capabilities of the once-unfriended inn. About this period, a gentleman from the city of Washington, journeying this way to escape the heats of the sea- board, was so taken with the pleasant temperature of the air and the wild beauty of the mountains, that he bought the place — impelled somewhat thereto, no doubt, by the trout in the streams and the deer in the forests. Under his rule a new house was erected, large enough to hold a goodly compa- ny. This is the house — 'fair enough to look upon in its outside array, and comfortable enough within — that now stands imposing, not far away from the old one, on the brow of a lofty hill overlooking the Potomac. " Winston" the place is called — so called because the eighty-seventh milestone from Winches- ter is won when you reach its door. Edward Tow- ers keeps it — or did, when the Black water expedi- tion won the stone. Here, for some years past, ma- ny of our citizens, of both Virginia and Maryland, have been in the habit of resorting in the summer and fall months, to fish for trout, hunt the deer, shoot pheasants, wild turkeys, woodcock in their INTKODUCTORY. 9 season, and enjoy the invigorating atmosphere of a country whose level is so high above the sea. The ride to this place over the Northwestern road is exquisitely delightful, and withal as easy as a ride can well be. You travel over a graded slate road — the perfection of a summer highway — engi- neered skilfully, and at but a low grade, through the gorges and defiles of these fine mountains, and, when crossing any of them, seeming to have been carried over purposely at those points where the scenery is of the grandest or most beautiful charac- ter. Take it altogether, for the excellence of the road, and the varied combinations of scenery that are ever presenting themselves to view, there is no route across the mountains anywhere that excels it. With a pair of good horses in a light carriage, you can speed along all the way as if you w^ere taking an evening drive about your home, even though your home be where the roads are the best in the land. And then, w^hat exhilaration of spirit is felt by you as you roll smoothlj^ along at the rate of some ten miles an hour, your horses scarcely stretch- ing a trace — seeming merely to keep out of the way of the wheels! — on one side of you a deep gorge, a thousand feet down, dark with hemlocks and firs, where a mountain-stream breaks its way to the sea ; above you, high-towering peaks and over- hanging cliffs, where the oak or stately fir has cast anchor, and held on for ages in defiance of all the 1* 10 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. storms of the Alleganies ; while before you, afar off, glittering in the sunshine, are seen in glimpses the green fields and meadows of some fair, luxuriant valley; and the whole horizon bounded by lofty mountains that seem to defy all approach, but which you at length wind your way through by some con- cealed cleft, the bed of a stream, with scarcely any more of obstruction than a bowling-green w^ould present to your glowing wheels. There are but few things more agreeably exciting to the spirits than a rapid drive through the coun- try on a good road. There are some who will not assent to this proposition ; but they are not to be deferred to in these matters of fastness^ and do not understand the philosophy of the human soul. " The power of agitation upon the spirits," says Dr. John- son, " is well known. Every man has felt his heart lightened by a rapid drive or a gallop on a swift horse." This might be only a little closet philoso- phy of the sturdy old despot of letters, maintained in theory but belied in practice, like our famous doctrine of state-rights here in Virginia ; but we have it on record that the rough old viking of our English literature considered it one of the prime fe- licities of his life to ride in a stage-coach, even at the rate of speed attainable in his day. If one of the soundest moral philosophers that any age or country has produced can be shown as both theo- retically and practically enforcing the happiness of INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 rapid motion — at least to the extent that conld be achieved by an English stage-coach, and over the comparatively rude thoroughfares leading out of London a hundred j^ears ago — -ante Agamemnona^ that is, before M'Adam — how much more delight- ful must be the agitation of your spirits, and the consequent lightening of your heart, when the at- mosphere you breathe, as you drive smoothly along behind a pair of untiring thoroughbreds, is the very purest, and the scenes around you are among the grandest or most beautiful of a whole continent! And all this too, recollect, with a splendid craving all over you — feeling it even at your finger-ends — everywhere — for food: visions of venison-steaks, and hot rolls, and fresh summer* butter, made where the meadows are " with daisies pied," floating through 3^our crowded and hunger-enraptured brain — and with the certainty, too, all the while in your mind, that you can not apparently kill this craving for the time being with anything in the shape of a breakfast, dinner, supper, or what not, but it will be all powerful again upon you- in some three or four hours! — an appetite seemingly endowed with the quality of the phoenix, that out of its own ashes renews itself — "revives and flourishes, Like that self-begotten bird, In the Arabian woods embossed" — not surpassed by anything of the sort that we have 12 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. on record — not by Sancho Fanza's, nor by Ritt- master Dngald Dalgetty's, nor yet that. of the migh- ty heroes of the Iliad — aptly to describe which the genius of Homer was only equal, when the divine old bard sings of it as the sacred rage of hunger. If any mortal of these sated days would wish fully to appreciate what this Homeric rage is, let him take this ride to the Alleganies ; and though he should be of a nobler spirit than Esau, yet will he in his inmost soul commiserate that poor devil for having sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. GETTING UNDER WAY. 15 CHAPTEK II. GETTING TNDEK WAY. •The stout earl of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure on the Scottish ground Three summer days to take." The stout Earl Percy, here alluded to, did take his pleasure on the Scottish ground — and how, all the world knows that has read the fine old ballad of " Chevy Chase." How the stout gentlemen, and also those who were none of the stoutest, who took their pleasure on the Black water, came off, hearken to the following chronicle, and you shall learn. It was toward the first of June last past, that a number of gentlemen, residing near each other, in a pleasant part of that rich valley vaunted to the world as tJie garden of Virghiia, and called by the people of the mountain-ranges back of it the land of Egfpt^ from the quantity of grain which it pro- daces, determined to make a pleasure expedition into the Allegany country, having it chiefly in view to harry its streams for trout. Accordingly, on one fine morning — it was on the last day of the univer- 16 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. sally-lauded month of May — we gathered together, prepared as best we knew how for the expedition. It was at the pleasant country-dwelling of Mr. Peter Botecote, one of our number, that we made our rendezvous : — "And Wat of Harden came thither amain, And thither came John of Thirlestane, And thither came William of Deloraine" — and all the rest of us — men, dogs, and horses. Here, after some animated parley, and an early din- ner, it was resolved that we should forthwith take our departure, notwithstanding the strawberries that were ripe in the garden, and the cream that was abounding in the dairy, and what too was far more delaying, the fascination of our lady-hostess. Pleas- ant enough this bower of Botecote's ; but hope smiled its enchantments upon us far away, fr»om the very midst of the wild Alleganies, and our hearts were too much agog and all a-tiptoe with its illusions, to think of staying. The delirium of the mountains was upon us ; and so, amid the neighing and paw- ing of horses, the speeding to and fro of servants, the dancing eyes of children, and the wife's half- sorrowful smile as she committed her adventurous husband to the destiny of a two or three weeks' sep- aration, we wheeled into order, and took up the line of march. " Hey !"— " Get away !"— '' Ho !"— " Ha, you dog!" — whips flourishing, dogs barking — all the commotion that a country -gentleman's establish- GETTING UNDER WAY. 17 ment could well get up ; every good spirit attend- ing, to say nothing of the high ones : thus we left the Botecote portals, and — "All the blue bonnets are over the border 1" We drove to Winchester, a town when George II. was king here in Virginia : not one of your re- cent cities, grown up to a hundred thousand people within the memory of men alive, but an old, time- honored town, of some five thousand souls, with re- membrances about it ; familiar to the footsteps of Thomas, the sixth Lord Fairfax, when he lived at Greenway court (some ten miles off), and held pow- er as lieutenant of the county of Frederick, hunted the boar, w^rote for " The Spectator," and set twenty covers daily at his table : famous, too, in our provin- cial history, as the military headquarters of Wash- ington during the war of '65 against the French for the possession of the western countr3^ Here, to this old border stronghold of the Dominion, where the dismantled ramparts of Fort Loudon still look down upon the town, we drove over night, a matter of some twenty miles, ready to make a more sus- tained movement the next morning on Winston — some eighty-seven miles distant, as already stated, on the j^orthwestern road. The expedition travelled in three light carriages, such as are commonly called wagons^ all tight and sound, freshly washed, oiled, and rubbed, and glit- 18 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. tering in the sun ".like images :" eacli wagon drawn by a vigorous trotter in fine condition, and able on a good road easily to make such time as would have satisfied Dr. Johnson, even though his philosophy of happiness should have required a greater speed than ten miles an hour. We were five in all : the sixth didn't go, that gentleman having failed us by the way, owing to some anxieties he entertained about trusting himself so high up on the continent. But no matter; we were yet five. There was — Mr. Peter Botecote, generally called Butcut by his familiars — sometimes But; Mr. Guy Philips, the Master of the priory of St. Philips : hence familiarly the master, sometimes the Prior, and occasionally " the county Guy ;" Triptolemus Todd, Esq., our Murad the Unlucky, and sometimes Trip ; Doctor Adolphus Blandy, physician to the expe- dition : Galen he was called for short ; And the Signor Andante Strozzi, our artist, also amateur musician. Mr. Perry Winkle, jocosely called by his friends, in one syllable, PerryiDinMe^ is the name of the gentleman who didnH go — which we mention here that he may not altogether escape immor- tality — and would also give his likeness, were it not for a well-founded apprehension that it might too much divert the attention of the reader from our narrative. GETTING TINDER WAY. 19 The array, it will be perceived from the naming, is somewhat imposing, and gives promise of some- thing to be done and said out of the common. Truly, this record of the performance need not fall short of the promise, if the ambitious chronicler can succeed, by any happy art, in anything like a history that shall be a just impress — an impress of the body and soul — of the expedition. Thucy d- ides hit it, in his narrative of The Sailing for Sicily, also in The Landing of Alcihiades at Athens; Livy, in that part of his twenty -first book which we 've got, and no doubt in the remainder of it, if we could only find it ; Segur, in the retreat from Moscow; Macaulay, in the landing of the prince of Orange, and the march on London; Voltaire's Charles the Twelfth, too, ought not to be passed over in this enumeration ; nor yet Sallust's little narrative of Catiline. Let us add another to the illustrious roll, by writing the Blackwater J^ar- rative up to the immortal standard. Deserted, then, by Mr. Perrywinkle, we were yet five in number ; all good men and true, and of unusually diversified character and appearance : none of us to be called old in years, but old enough in the ups and downs, and ins and outs of this world, having made "many hair-breadth 'scapes by flood and field," by town and country, by man and wo- man also, in our time — even tlie more youthful Triptolemus, who has killed in his time several 20 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. good pointers in shooting partridges, and some few years ago shot himself in the right knee — which will account for his lameness in these pages. With- out mincing matters too much, we will speak it out freely, that we were all men of some mark and likelihood, as men go ; and although the world might not judge us (which it is our opinion it would make a great mistake in not doing) as " fit to stand by Caesar in a tented field," there can be no doubt that it would hold us all, if it had the honor of our acquaintance, as fit to sit by that " foremost man of all the world," at a dinner or a supper, at any rate. We will take the liberty of saying, however, with great modesty, and begging pardon of every- body, and especially of the old Eomans, that if " the mightiest Julius" had been along with us upon this expedition, he would have found the passage into the country of the Blackwater a far more fatiguing enterprise than any of his incur- sions into the countries of the AUobrogi, or E"ervii, or Acquitanii, or Boii, or any other of those out- siders, against whom the elegant and captivating greatest Koman marched. It will not be amiss here to mention, that we travelled upon our inroad very much after the fashion in which Caesar went upon his. Grave History has not thought it beneath her dignity to record how the great master of the Koman world GETTING UNDER WAY. 21 went upon his depredations ; and it is one of lier condescensions for which we are very much obliged to her. It is therefore, we know, among other things of this elegant and all-accomplished subverter of the republic and founder of the fourth and last univer- sal empire, that he rode in a carriage upon his forays. This carriage was called a rJieda^ " a sort of gig or curricle," says a recent very distinguished authoiity, Mr. De Quincey, "a four-wheeled car- riage, and adapted to the conveyance of about half a ton." This, the reader will perceive, is in and about our modern wagon ; and we have no doubt, if the matter were fairly investigated, it would be ascertained that the rheda of the Eoman is the prototype of the wagon of the American : it 's a four-runner at any rate. Julius used this carriage, we are informed, because it enabled him to take with him the amount of equipment that was essen- tial to his elegant and patrician habits : his various mantles — for instance, the one he overcame the IS'ervii in, which he preserved and wore many years after in the city, and was the same in which the envious Casca made the rent, that Shakspere and Casca between them have made so immortal ; his bandboxes, in which he kept the wreaths he wore around his head, as our ladies do now on festival occasions — the ivy, the laurel, the oak wreaths, and what others I know not ; his bathing apparatus, brushes, soaps, &c. ; his unguents and 22 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. perfumes, with the various ancient Roman balms for the cure of baldness. The rheda was adjusted to the convenient transportation of these essentials of an elegant Roman gentleman of that day : and so the wagon to the wants of the daintiest gentle- man of this. It will be perceived, therefore, that our expedi- tion has many points of resemblance to those so famous of the splendid Roman. It was depredatory in the first place. It combined, in the second, about an equal commingling of the luxurious and the rough- and-tumble. Thirdly : considering that it took the field about nineteen centuries later than Caesar's, there is a very remarkable resemblance between the vehicles used in both. Fourthly : in one single engagement, fought on the Blackwater, and which lasted only about two hours, no less than four hun- dred and ninety some odd of the enemy were slain, and what is more, fully a hundred of them eaten next thing to alive : and this, we take it, will com- pare with anything done in Gaul. Lastly : the wild tribes that infested the Alleganies, fled before our arms ; many a flying army of deer owed their lives to the mercy of the invaders ; the badgers and the otters • — a feeble people, yet sagacious and wary — we laid ourselves out to take by policy, that is en- trap them, as Osesar did the like people of Gaul ; and had not the fierce panthers, the rude bears, the prowling wolves, and the other warlike inhab- THE EXPEDITION DANCES A IIOllNPIPE. 25 night, and fresli and fragrant everywhere is the morning. The forest-leaves are all washed clean as the waters of heaven can make them, and the gras- ses are more delicately green in their renewal. The rain-drops, not yet dried np, sparkle all over the forest, in the glittering sunshine, like beads of pearl. All nature, animate and inanimate — on four legs, two, or none — feels the heavenly influence of the hour. The woods are vocal with the rapturous voice of birds. The wild-flowers — the wild-rose and the wood-violet, the gorgeous laurel, and the sweet elder- bloom — in all their freshened glory, give their deli- cate perfumes to the liberal air, and their hues of heaven to the enraptured sight. The streams, some- times crossing our path, and sometimes flowing on by our side — seeming to go with us whichever way ^ye go — flowing on adown the dell or by the rifted rock, and all embowered with shrubs and tangled vines : these sing their sweet songs tuneful to the ear, until at length, ecstasy — born of the niurmur- ing waters, the balm of the air, the glory of the wild-flowers, the warble of the birds, and the smooth velocity of your rheda — enters into the heart, and pervades your countenance with a radiance that is almost divine. Thus full of all joy that is born of summer and the mountain?, we speed on our way — to happiness and to Winston! On we drive, over the smooth road, through gorge, and dell, and valley, when l)y- 26 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. and-by we ascend a mountain, winding up its side like the track of a snake, until we reach the top. Here a magnificent panorama of distant-blending valleys and niountains piled on mountains, breaks suddenly on our view ; and, seized with a shouting spirit of exultation — " We call a halt, and make a stand, And cry, 'St. George for merry England!'" — meaning thereby this all-hailed land of ours, which the patriotic reader will of course understand. The day is now some four hours old by the shad- ow ; and before yet the last echoes of our voices have died away in the hills and rocks around, a wayfarer, all in minstrel array bedight, walked in wearily among us. He called a halt, and made a stand, too, on the mountain's brow. This was a wan- dering Italian, with his hand-organ strapped to his back, who had ascended from the other side ; and it was not long before he had unburdened himself of his bread-winner, and given us a specimen of what his art could do. His instrument was a very good one, and our imaginations had by this time thrown around him an air of romance and poetry. Had we encountered him in the streets of a city, he would have been nothing more than an ordinary strolling minstrel to us ; but here, in the forest, his music struck upon the ear pleasantly enough, and brought to its aid much poetic association. It sound- THE EXPEDITION DANCES A HORNPIPE. 27 ed of the days when the old harper begged his bread from door to door : and the hand-organ is already half-elevated into the harp, and he who turns it has a sonl alive to poetry and song. Happy power of illusion ! it is better than gold in gilding this bare life — this life so bare and hard to the pure reason, so full of charm to the imagination ! Thus idealizing the hand-organ and the very good- looking, rather handsome man, who turned it, we now left our wagons ; and, out in the road, and face to face, we hold friendly parley with the stranger. The wandering minstrel is a Neapolitan ; and the Signer Strozzi, our artist, glad of a chance to refresh himself with a little Italian, immediately enlarges upon the renowned city — its towers and palaces, the bay, the towns around, and the neighboring vol- cano lurid in the heavens. IS'ot unmindful of his country, there is moisture in the eye of the min- strel, and something very like a tear is on his cheek. There is something sympathetic in all show of feel- ing ; and when the prior of St. Philips repeated in feeling tones the song of the harper in Rokeby — "Wo came with war, and want with wo, And it was mine to undergo Each outrage of the rebel foe : • Can aught atone My fields laid vraste, my cot laid low? My harp alone ! "Ambition's dreams I've seen depart, Have rued of penury the smart, 550 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. Have felt of love the venomed dart, When hope was flown ; Yet rests' one solace to my heart — My harp alone ! "Then o'er mountain, moor, and hill, My faithful harp, I'll bear thee stil], And when this life of want and ill Is well nigh gone, Thy strings mine elegy shall thrill, My harp alone!" — when the feeling prior, here on the mountain's brow, crooned forth these verses — the ruined exile stand- ing tired before' him, with his arm thrown over his bread-winner — let the susceptibility to emotion be here recorded of the expedition, which made us draw forth our purses and give to this rude votary of the "joyous science" more silver and gold than he had gathered in a week in all his roaming. We were as good as two or three villages to him. Having, however, some latent, half shame-prompt- ed idea that we might be indulging a little too much in a sentimental luxury, incompatible with the man- ly and somewhat rough, Runic character of our en- terprise, we daffed aside these softer emotions, and struck off into a lighter and gayer strain, more in keejDing with the actual state of the case around us. And so the Neapolitan, Jacomo, assumed once more his usual professional bearing, and struck his lyre to the strains that nightly over the earth swell the hearts of those who worship at the feet of Terp- sichore — that is, he played us some waltzes and THE EXPEDITION DANCES A HORNPIPE. 20 polkas. And presently we all began to dance — the little figures in the glass case in front of the organ, and we on the slaty summit of the mountain-road. / / .<--^ . •: / / -■ S^fci^ Away we go, in fine accord with the minstrelsey — now waltzing together in bold sweeps around the brow of the mountain ; and now, with arms akimbo, dancing a polka, in many mazy gyrations, after the most approved manner of executing that dance, as it was first exhibited by the ballet-people at our theatres, before yet it became fashionable in high life. The whole affair we concluded with Fisher's hornpipe, through which we capered with such sur- prising agility as was never before or since made manifest on the top of any mountain in the United 30 THE BLACKWATER CPIRONICLE. States — or, probably, at the bottom of aii}' one either. As we danced, we all sang, too, in accom- paniment with the strains, thus doubly taxing our powers. The dust flew, and rose into the heavens ; Jacomo's black eye sparkled as he swiftly turned his crank. The scene was as intense as the race down the quarter stretch between Eclipse and Hen- ry, when North and South hung suspended on the strife. We swam the very air agile and swift-bound- ing — some of tis — as the antelope; others with a strained, incongruous jerking and ponderous agil- ity, very much like what might be supposed of a buffalo in a hornpipe. Even the lame leg of Murad the Unlucky might be cauglit a glimpse of, every now and then, flying about in the midst of the hurly- burly as something independent of anybody pres- ent: in our American vernacular, it seemed, to be going it on its own hooh. The horses drew up around us with their wagons, and, with ears bent forward, and fascinated gaze, looked on in pleased wonderment. Fisher'^s hornpijje is perhaps one of the fastest tunes now known in all Christendom ; and yet, fast as w^e danced it, we sang it. It was thus the wild descant rang through the forest : — " Did you ever see the devil, With his iron wooden shovel, A scratching up the gravel, W ith his nightcap on ? Tire EXPEDITION DiLNCES A HORNPIPE. 31 " No, I never saw the devil, With his iron wooden shovel, A scratching up the gravel, With his nightcap on." \_Repeated twicc^ " Did you ever, ever, ever, Ever, ever, ever, ever, Ever, ever, ever, ever, Catch a whale by the tail ? " No, I never, never, never, Never, never, never, never. Never, never, never, never, * Caught a whale by the tail." \_Repeated twice.'] The echoes around take up our voices at every pause for breath ; the mountains, as in the old Bible times, cry aloud for joy ; and ever see the devils and nightcap on^ and whole hy the tail^ in the cadence of the hornpipe, are repeated far and near, until at length the uproar dies away — in some fiir remote dell, a last faint, feeble sound of whale . . . tail, lingering for a moment on the ear, and all is hushed : the echoes have gone to sleep again, and nothing breaks upon the stillness of the mountains, save the lazy sound of the summer wind, that is itself almost silence. Somewhat fagged and out of breath, we now once more took to our wagons, the horses by this time well rested ; and leaving the ISTeapolitan, dis- consolate Jacomo, standing irresolute on the moun- tain's brow, we swept down the windings of the 32 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. highway, at the rate of some twelve miles to the hour — Jacomo still standing motionless as a pic- ture, as we entered a wild defile of the forest, and for ever lost him to the sight. Winding our way over a broken range of picturesque hills, we at length entered a ravine, down which a clear, spark- ling stream hunts its course to a neighboring river. Here are some very remarkable cliffs of a pure white sandstone, which is in some demand among the nicer housekeepers of Winchester and Eomney for scouring purposes. Into the base of one of these cliffs, a large excavation has been made, where the rock is so purely white, that it suggests to you the idea of a quarry of the finest loaf-sugar. Passing these loaf-sugar cliffs, we drove on leisurely down the cool ravine, by the banks and through the fords of the silvery stream, when presently we emerged from the deep shadows of some thickly-clustered hemlocks and pines into the light of day, and found ourselves before the tavern door of Mr. Charles Blue. Here we stopped to feed and rest our horses for some two or three hours — taking care, in the meantime, to regale ourselves with such delicacies of fried chickens, broiled ham and eggs, and fresh butter and milk, as the house afi'orded us. About two o'clock — the day being still pleasant, and without any burdensome heat — we took to the road again ; and after some two hours' travel, through the green valleys and over other mountains, we at THE EXPEDITION DANCES A HORNPIPE. 66 length came in sight of the httle town of Romnej, beautifully situated upon a sloping plateau of land that lies back of the high banks and bluffs of the South Branch ; the river here flowing along in all its winding lines of beauty — on through rich bot- toms and bold over-hanging mountains, to its junc- tion with the Potomac. Somewhere about four o'clock — after descending a long and beautiful sweep of road, grand enough in all its features to be the avenue to some lordly city — we drove up to the door of the village inn (the old Virginia designation is ordinary), situated pleasantly on the main street of Eomney, and kept by Mr. Armstrong, formerly a member of Congress from this district, but who has for some years past chosen the better part — shaken the dust of the cap- itol from his feet, and commanded the respect and good will of all considerate people who travel this way, by the manner in which he discharges his pres- ent representative duty to the public. In this com- fortable inn, we took our ease for the rest of the day, having accomplished just forty-four miles over those mountains, since first we drew rein in the morning. How the Signor Strozzi was taken by some of the good people of Romney for an Italian revolu- tionist — how Doctor Blandy built a very remark- able castle in the air, that from a neighboring eminence commanded the South Branch valley — 9* 34 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. how Mr. Bntcut set the porch in a roar, at a story he told of some cockneys who came over to New York to hunt bears about that city ; how the Prior discoursed eloquently on Lucerne grass and the ancients ; how Triptolemus, when the levee we held on the porch was at the highest, called every- body by somebody else's name ; how we passed altogether a very cheerful and gay evening of it, among the social citizens of Romney, who did us the honor to make our acquaintance — we will not detain the reader by setting forth in full in these pages, but here end this chapter, and with it the narrative of the evening. THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 35 CHAPTER lY. THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED BY THE PRIOR OF ST. PHIL- IPS, FROM THE TOP OF THE ALLEGANY. tV^HAT time the skylark plumed his wing, the ex- pedition awoke from its slumbers, and betimes arose ; what time the sun peeped into the casements of the village hostel, it sat triumphant over a routed break- fast-table, and, like Alexander, sighed that it had no more to conquer. In this condition, he of Mace- don took to drink — but we to our wagons, with a good-by to pleasant Romney. The morning was delightfully bracing. Whether it was the mountain-air, or the mountain-oats, that inspired them, our horses carried themselves as proud as reindeers, and went down the main street of Romney with a free swing, fully up to the re- quirements of' the Dr. Johnson philosophy in this matter. As we crossed the high plain to the bhiffs of the river, the scenery of the South-Branch valley was just developing into expression — the mountain in bold masses, the winding river with its mists, the rich bottoms striped with cornfields, the long range of brown cliffs in the distance, and in the foreground 36 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. the high pLain on which sat the picturesque town: all in striking contrasts of light and shade ; the dark shadows of the mountains, and the golden mists of the river; the spangled dewdrops on the meadows, and the funeral drapery of the pine-forests ; Apollo, from his chariot of the sun, elimning some new glory of the picture, as he drove on up the steeps of the skies. This glimpse of the sunrise-picture was all we saw, for it is but a mile from the town to the bluifs of the river, and these we have already gained. We now descended from the table-land, and crossed the South Branch by a good bridge. With the river on one side and the overhanging mountain on the other, we drove on for a mile or so ; when we turned off, and passed through the mountain on almost a dead- level road, winding along the side of a sti-eam that here makes its way through a deep cleft to the river. For some fifteen miles the road is a beautiful one — \ smooth, and of easy grade in its gradual rise toward the Alleganies ; now hugging the hills, now follow- ing the bends of the streams, now through valleys spotted with farmhouses and green with luxuriant grass. At length we came to the Knobley, which w^e ascended, passing through a hamlet scattered carelessly along the cultivated slopes of the mount- ain. This mountain presents a very remarkable out- line, being a succession of high knobs or peaks with intervening low depressions, giving it the appear- THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 37 aiice of ail indented castle-wall. Tliroiigli one of these depressions we crossed, and descended by easy traverses to the other side. For a mile or so we w^ound our way through the defiles of a broken range of hills, and emerged at length into a narrow J and beautifully-picturesque valley — the Allegany piled up in grand masses on one side, and the road running for some miles along the banks of a clear, rapid stream, known hereabouts as New creek — just such a stream, so wild and cool, as the imagi- nation would fill with trout a fjot and a quarter long, and some four inches deep behind the shoul- ders. ^^ the side of the sparkling creek, w^ith (no doubt) trout to be had for the casting of a fly, or tlie im- paling of a worm, w^e found a large and comfortable brick house, where a Mr. Reese keeps an inn higlily spoken of in these parts for its excellent accommo- dations. At the base of the Allegany stands invi- tingly the mountain-embowered inn. In front of this is the clear, cool, wild, dancing stream ; and up beyond this again, rises with bold ascent, almost at right-angles to the water, a richly-wooded spur of the Allegany, colored with all-blended hues of green, ^ from the pale tea-color of the mountain-ash, to the dark, grand, gloom green, almost invisible green, of the clustered fir-trees and hemlocks — tliese the nobler pines tliat more particularly distinguish the forests of the Allegany ranges. 38 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. From Eeese's house, at the base, it is seven miles to the to23 of the Allegany — something of an Olym- pus to the warts behind us. Mindful of our horses, we gird up our loins for the encounter, and take to the heaven-kissing hill afoot. Half-way up there is a fountain of pure spring- water caught in a rude trough by the roadside ; and men and horses gather around, and revel in the mountain hippocrene. The lookout from here is already grand. Far and wide you behold the land we have travelled. On we go again, up and up, still up ; and the air you breathe is freer, and the scene wilder and yet more widely revealed at every turn of the road, rounding each rocky promontory that juts the mountain-side. In something more than two hours we reached the toll-gate, situated near the summit of the ridge, and commanding a prospect of all tlie land lying abroad to the eastward. This is one of the grandest and most diversified mountain-scenes in the whole range of our country : mountains piled on mount- ains everywhercj of every variety of size and shape, with all their valleys, glens, gorges, dells, and nar- row defiles — all yet varied by the changing light and shade that falls upon them from the heavens — as the heavens are ablaze with sunshine, or swept by passing summer-clouds. Altogether it is such a scene as seldom meets the eye. At once its glory has entered into the heart and fired the imagination, and we are a thousand THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 39 times over repaid for the long, toilsome ascent that has given it to us. To view it aright, it should be seen under all changing aspects : at the dawn and the sunrise ; under the earlier and the later shadows of the morning ; when the midday blaze has made it all dreamy as an ocean unmoved ; as the shadows lengthen upon it in the evening ; as the gloom of the twilight gathers over it. To see it in its great- est sublimity, you should be here when, bare of leaf, and all rugged in its disclosure, it is terrible with the howling storms of winter — storms sweeping dreadfully both the heavens and the earth ! Yet, even in a half-hour's glance, much will be written upon the mind that can never be effaced ; and this " dim spot, that men call earth," will be ever after greatly dignified to your appreciation. A scene thus ennobling, let us not pass away from it too lightly. Let us portray it, even though it be with such indistinct limning as the few moments we loitered at the toll gate will enable. You are at such height here at the gate, that as you stand looking eastward, there is nothing to bound your vision but your natural horizon. You are above the whole scene ; and looking over it, you may be said to look down over it. You command it all, to the extent of the power of the eye. Far below you, some thousands of feet, is a wood-em- bosomed dell, with an open farm every liere and there spotted along it, looking at this distance like 40 THE BLACK WATER CHEONICLE. patches of wild meadow and glade in the midst of the vast forest around. Immediately beyond rises a bold and rugged mountain, whose craggy top is indented like the battlements of a castle, and whose sides sweep down, dark with firs and hemlocks, and every variety of pines, to the edge of the deep val- ley. Looking to the right, the mountains are bro- ken and irregular, as if they had been tossed and torn to pieces by some mighty upheaving of the earth, and had thus fallen scattered about in con- fused, giant masses: some elegant and majestic as the " star'y-pointed pyramid ;" some grand and massive as the " proud bulwark on the steep ;" oth- ers of huge, misshapen bulk — the Calibans of the wild ; and others, again, so grotesque of form, that they seem to have been moulded by the very genius of Whim — the Merry- Andrews of the Alleganies: and all yet beautiful and soft to the eye, with the softening hues of summer — these summer hues pro- ducing the same effect here that time has wrought upon the rugged feudal castle, as so beautifully de- scribed in the verse of Mason : — "Time Has moulded into beauty many a tower, Which, when it frowned with all its battlements, Was only terrible" On the left the scene is in strong contrast with the grand and grotesque mountains we have just described. Here, along the steeps of the Allegany, THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 41 you catcli picturesque glimpses of the winding liigh- way — and, again, you see it boldly emerging from the woods at the base of the mountain, and sweep- ing on through the open vale, and by the banks of the silvery stream, down past the embowered house and cultivated lands of Reese — on — and away, until it turns off, and is lost in the mountains. This little valley, which but this morning we traversed in part, now stretches itself out so far before us that it grows indistinct and confused to the sight — its fields so diminished in size that they look like garden-beds ; the winding stream that threads it seeming but a waving line of silver. The picture has all the delicacy of a scene in miniature, and there is a witching summer-softness over it all as of the beauty and the sheen of a voluptuous woman, or (if you prefer it) of a ripe peach. Further over in the mountains is a wider and more open valley, that seems from here almost a plain, and so hazy and indistinct are its outlines, that your imagination exerts its fanciful power, and you see — dimly — vaguely — towers, and temples, and mighty domes, revealing themselves before your eyes, as if some lordly city was about to grow up upon the plain by enchantment. Turning again, and looking straight forward, eastwardly, whence we came, and lo ! what ideas of vastness crowd upon the mind ; for it is all one vast sea of mountains, as far as the eye can behold— range beyond range ever appearing — 42 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. heaviiis: like the blue waves of some immense sea — wave following wave in endless succession; for your horizon being bounded everywhere by moun- tains, to the imagination there is no limit, and all beyond is wave after wave of the same giant sea. Gazing upon this noble scene, the prior of St. Philips grew excited — his eye dilated — his soul was all ablaze ; and no longer able to hold himself, he stretched forth his right hand and gave tongue as follows : — " Gentlemen, I see into it all now, and if our invasion of the Alleganies effects nothing else I shall go home satisfied. Our mountains have been greatly slandered — most vilely traduced by the cockneys; and beholding this mighty scene, I'm lost in wonder that some man with a large enough soul, hasn't long since put them right before the world." " That's right, stick it into them, Prior ; give it to 'em. County, you're the man to do it." " Put to route and everlasting shame the whole insolent and conceited herd." "Hash them, slash them, All to pieces dash them !" " Let them have it as Tom Hyer gave it to Sul- livan." "Dress their jackets genteely. Prior." " Dont spare either age, sex, or condition." THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 43 " Begin : — '"Oinnes conticuere iutentique ora tenebant, Sic ' " " Sic who ! He dont want any sicking, let liim go on." Silence being restored, and the rage of the expe- dition against the cockneys a little mollified by the steam it had let off, Mr. Philips plunged epic-wise into the middle of things. "If I were called upon, gentlemen, to say what was the great especial characteristic of our Ameri- can mountains, I would reply at once, their immen- sity—not the immensity of size, but of extent— that they fill the mind with the same order of sublime emotion that the ocean does, with this difference, that the sublimity, though alike in kind, is higher in degree." " Good, good !" " How clear he is !" " The mountain sea is the actual sea enlarged to giant proportions. Standing here as we do now, and gazing out into the blue waves flowing in toward us from the distant horizon, I want to know, gentlemen, what sort of a ship would that be, to which these waves would rise mast-high?" " What sort indeed ?" " Yes, you may well ask what sort ! not such, I take it, as sailed of old out of Tarsus and Tyre, cal- ling forth the deep wonder of Solomon; not snch 4A: THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. as swept tlie seas under JSTelson at Trafalgar or the ]^ile ; not such, even, as those that now sail under the star-spangled banner — that heaven-symbolized ensign — challenging the wonder of all mankind; not even leviathan, gentlemen, now in dock at Portsmouth — the Pennsylvania. JSToah's ark, when it rode the highest wave of the deluge — the merest cockle-shell as it must have seemed in those mighty waters, would be a merer cockle-shell in these." '' Fine. How figurative is his style !" "Like Jeremy Taylor's!" " Something of the massive grandeur of Bishop Hooker's !" " And the perfervidtim of Milton's, with a dis- criminating infusion of the swash-buckler." "And yet, gentlemen," continued Mr. Philips, knitting his brows, and cojicentrating his eyes to a focus, as if the object of all his bile stood before him, " and yet, though of such grandeur are these mountains, filling the mind with such nobility of thought, what means all this disparagement that is sputtered forth against them by the whole herd of modern travellers, abroad and at home, with some few honorable exceptions, who talk such downright arrant nonsense about them ?" "How efiPectually he puts a question!" " What a fool-killer he would make !" "The old Silenus riding an ass! Lambaste him well, Guy, while you're on him !" THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 45 "It is the burden of all these cockneys, gentle- men, and particularly of the John Bull, our cousin- germain, that our mountains are poor concerns. Why ? Because (say these gentlemen fresh from the land of Cockaigne and thereabouts) when you have labored and toiled for half a day to get to the top of the highest Ararat or Taurus you can find, you can see nothing but endless mountains before you, and always in the farthest distant some giant higher still than that whereon, half-dead in climbing it, you foolishly expected to behold both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans." "How he accumulates it upon them!" " Piles the agony !" "Wood up. County!" " Throw in the bacon sides !" " And not true this, even in fact, but miserably untrue. Why, look aroimd you here as you stand. The refutation of the foolish nonsense is before your eyes. What are all these valleys, great and small — what all these dells and gorges, chasms, defiles, passes-— these streams and rivers, rivulets and rills. Look at that drove of fatted beeves, winding yonder over the Knobley — the long column seemingly in- terminable. What have you to say to that lordly city of the far mountain plain, with all its towers and domes — its vast palaces looming up to the eye, and looming larger as you concentrate your gaze ; visible only, it is true, to the imagination, acted 4:6 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. upon through the deceived sense, but yet a nobler city than was ever built by ha^nds !" " Hold on, Prior, let's hear that again !" " Dont speak, Trip ; he's about to touch on some- thing profound." " And if such seeming cities, gentlemen, natur- ally arise to the eye here in the mountains — natur- ally, because the result of natural causes, what though in absolute fact there is no city there — what if it is illusion — all in my eye, as the vulgar say ? It is only the reasoning mind that tells you this. The imaginative mind tells you there is a city : one part of your intellectual organization says there is not, another part tells you there is, and which do you believe ? Most undoubted, as far as the present picture is concerned, the one that tells your sense that there before you stands the city. And there, to all intents and purposes, it does stand apparent before you, in all its magnified glory, such as was never built by human hands, such as can only be built by human brains, and those of the nobler order ; a city up to the standard of the new Jerusalem, if your imagination is of the order of St. John's. "Don't go in any deeper, Prior, or the subject will swim you." '' Devil the bit, its good wading all about where he is." "All this repeated cant, therefore, about our THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 4:7 American mountains is not true in point of fact. But what if it were?— yes, gentlemen, what if it were? And this question brings me to the gist of the matter. According to the very statement of the cockneys, upon their own showing, the view now before them, is one that fills -the human mind with ideas of the highest sublimity ; for what, to the man of the largest comprehension, can be more im- pressively vast than this same immensity of moun- tain ocean that everywhere presents itself to view, with all its heaving, interminable, giant waves!" " There you have knocked the swords out of the hands of the puny whipsters!" " Killed them dead !" " Dead as Julius Csesar !" " It's a slaughter of the innocents !" " It reminds me of the setting down Ulysses gave Thersites in the Grecian camp ! " It's great spouting !" " A whale's !" "Swamping the pigmies in a deluge of ocean brine !" "What a senator he would make! how they would crowd the capitol when he let himself out !" He's rather high-strung, I think, for the modern democracy !" "Not so, gentlemen, the very style and manner of eloquence— translucent, bold, free, combining imagination with reason — that has prevailed with 48 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. all wlio speak the English tongue, from the days of Alfred the Great to the present time." " Gentlemen of the expedition," resumed Mr. Philips, wiping the beads from his forehead, and with a self-sufficient air that would have done for the prince of Tyre, or Xerxes when he ordered the sea to be chained, "I think we have sufficiently explained the cockneys." " Explunctified 'em !" '' All to smashes. Prior !" "At all events, gentlemen, I've said my say — I've spit my spite, and my soul is now tranquil. With a serene exaltation I can again gaze over these mountain Mllows. The scene is indeed sub- lime ! I hear " the mighty waters rolling evermore" — a sound as of the j^olicphloisboio thalasses is in my ear. What a manifold ocean ! Here on the right is the classic Mediterranean: — yonder mon- strous promontory in among those jagged moun- tains is Scylla ; and wo unto the mariner, who, eager to avoid its dangers, falls into the neighbor- ing Charybdis's awful vortex ! What a going round and round and round would be his ! and what a swallowing up as he takes the suck — down — down — derry down, to the roaring music of the mael- strom. Oh ! gentlemen, bnt it would be grand shipwreck over there. Here to the left, where the shining valley sliows itself, is the sunny Archi- pelago and the Grecian isles ; and that grand city THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 49 looming up from the waters is Athens — or jou may have it old Troy — or the glittering city of Constantine, by the Thracian Bosphoras. There to the north are those ' nncouth, boisterous seas,' to whose mercy Francis Drake 'let go' all that was left of the invincible armada. Here's the Horn, and there's the cape 'of storms' — where you see the clouds gather. Yonder hazy point is Hatteras, and that tall naked pine is the mast of some yankee coaster, wrecked upon its fatal sands. All before me is the Atlantic; and down yonder, fast-founded by the wide-watered shore, some fifty sea-leagues hence, methinks I behold the lordly dome of our capitol, its gorgeous ensign peacefully flapping its folds over the land of the free and the home of the brave ! And yet the cockneys say these a'n't moun- tains !" " God bless the star-spangled banner !" " And d d for ever the cockney or what not, that would disparage, in any manner, the country over which it waves." " At another time, gentlemen," observed the Sig- ner Andante, " I could desire to add something to the glorification of our mountains, w^hich the Prior hasn't condescended to touch upon : — it is in regard to the sylvan majesty of their scenery, in wdiich they differ entirely from the European. You have no idea how bare the mountains abroad appear to our eyes, accustomed to these grand forests. In 3 50 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. connection with this part of the subject, I would like to take the cockneys a turn or two, upon the splendor of the foliage in October — the hues of all dyes — particularly the scarlet — " ' The leaves that with one scarlet gleam, Cover a hundred leagues and seem To set the hills -on fire.' > " But we can 't stay here all day." And the signer, without a word more, and with all that directness and determination of manner that char- acterized him, betook himself to his rheda — all the rest following — the Prior a little whetted by the exercise he took against the subjects of the king of Cockaigne. WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 51 CHAPTEE Y. WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN MR. EDWAED TOWERS. The sun by this time is riding nearly midway in the skies, and we hasten on to the summit of the mountain, seven miles up from its base. We have climbed " the mighty Helvelyn ;" and, what is more, we have said our say in doing it, to the honor and glory of the land, and the confounding of its ene- mies, their aiders and abettors. Here you gaze over the plateau of the wide Allegany ranges — some twenty miles across by the road ; and far in the dis- tance you behold the Backbone — the Taurus of the belt — down whose rugged sides the waters flow east and west into the far seas. Some four or five miles on our way^ more or less descending, on the side of a long hill that slopes down to Stony river, we stopped for the middle of the day at a large stone inn, kept open to the world by William Poole — Bill Poole seems to be his bet- ter-established designation hereabouts — from which familiar and easy manner of indicating him and his, we take it he is a good fellow, a lo7i camerado, in his neighborhood. Mr. Poole was not at home, but 52 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. he had left a big viceroy over his dominions, under whose lazy sway some broiling and frying was ac- complished, that stayed a little that sacred rage about which we spoke in the beginning of this chronicle. The hostler also was absent; and find- ing no representative of that very important official, we turned in and groomed our own horses ; and it was well done — which sa3^s something as to the value of being able to take care of yourself in this wide world. We took our coats off, rolled np our sleeves, and "pitched in" to the work, according to the formula prescribed in the stables of Colonel Johnson, of Chesterfield — ^now dead and gone — whose word was once law in all matters of hippol- ogy — horse-talh the unlearned do call it. "That hardihood," observed Mr. Butcut, as he twisted a fresh wisp of straw, " which scales mount- ains, penetrates the wilderness, or subjugates the beasts of the chase, while at the same time it re- fuses to exert itself upon the needful well-being of your horse, is but little to be commended." " Right, Doctor Johnson !" " The great Cyrus," said Doctor Blandy, " did not think it beneath him to exercise his care over the elephants he took with him on his expeditions." "In Egypt, Kapoleon always took special care of the asses when he went into battle," said Trip- tolemus. " King Richard II., Shakspeare tells us, fed roan WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 53 Barbary with his own hands," put in the Prior, ta- king a long breath. " If I am not mistaken," said the artist, " I have read it in the Iliad that Andromache herself fed Hector's horses — " " To be sure she did !" said Trip, " and with grain which she steeped in wine." "What is more directly to the point?" observed Blandy. "Let me remind you, gentlemen, of the personal care bestowed by Dugald Dalgetty upon Gustavus." " Enough," said Mr. Butcut. " That man is little to be envied who does not feel himself all in a glow at having accomplished the generous labor of rub- bing down his own horse. To my mind, it is an evidence of a princeh^ disposition. ^Nothing, indeed, can be more honorable — when you can get nobody else to do it for you — but if I rub my 'Gustavus' again, if he never gets a rubbing, I hope I may never reach Winston!" — And Peter threw down his wisp, and washed himself in the horse-bucket, after the manner of a hostler. With such like stable-talk — of which the above is but a small sample — we finished the rites, and left our Gustavuses to the enjoyment of their oats. In due course of time we once more encountered the road ; and after a drive of some twelve miles, over the undulating tops of this wide belt of mount- ains, down their gorges, through the passes, by fixrms 54: THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. lately cleared and green with wild timothy, blue- grass, and white clover — the natural growth of these line grazing regions — we at length crossed the Po- tomac, and, winding up a long, fair sweep of hill, slackened rein before the gates of Winston. It was somewhere about five o'clock when we won the stone, having driven some forty-three miles since we left the pleasant town of Romney in the early morning : forty-three miles of such delightful travel as can hardly be found elsewhere within our borders. We hailed our resting-place with divers and man- ifold exclamations of surprise and delight, which brought the alert Towers to the hostel-gates, in a very broad-brimmed straw hat, stuck all over with fishing hooks and lines. The castle of Winston stands, like the castle of Eichmond, "fair on the hill ;" and although it did not greet our eyes with the feudal grandeur of Norham — with warders on the turrets, donjon-keep, loophole grates where cap- tives weep, and the banner of St. George flapping idly in the breeze, as that famous hold met the gaze of Marmion and his train as they came "pricking o'er the hill," yet it looked cheerful and pleasant enough — had an air of something even like elegance as the western sun shed its splendor upon it. The porches with which it was arrayed imparted a look as of something " bedecked, ornate, and gay," like Delilah, Samson's wife, " this way sailing." Above WmSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 55 all, it filled the mind perforce with comfortable thoughts of the mountain-breeze, as it spread itself out on the brow of a commanding hill — a grand hill, that stretches down for half a mile in bold, lawn-like sweeps, to the Potomac : the river here flowing along in all wild beauty, some twelve or fifteen miles below where it emerges, a wimpling rill, from the slopes of the Backbone. The castellan or governor of Winston, Edwai-d Towers, Esq., met us at the portals, with evident gladness in his heart. Right away, he called for his right-hand man Andrew^, and proclaimed loud and quick his edicts in regard to horses, carriages, lug- gage, everything; every here and there something escaping his tongue, imprecatory of his or Andrew's eyes, or other parts of their bodies, snch as their lights or livers, and even their diviner parts : his movements all the while in just keeping with his utterance, being wiry and terrier-.like, up and down instead of longwise — energetic, sudden— just such action as hooks a trout without fail, and accounts for the governor of Winston's great reputation in these parts as a fisherman. " Walk in, gentlemen," said Mr. Towers ; " walk in, walk in. Aha ! well, indeed, you are here at last! Looked for you all day yesterday. Devil take me ! Where did you come from to-day, gen- tlemen ?" "From Eomney." 56 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. "By this time! Where did you dine — not at Keese's? Perhaj^s you had something with you?" "We stopped back here some twelve miles, at a large stone house on the side of a hill." "At Poole's — Bill Poole's. He went up above here to-day, fishing, d n his eyes !" " How are the trout, Towers ?" "There's nothing else in the water! I just took Andrew yesterday evening, and went up to the falls of the Potomac ^ — slept out all night on the hem- lock — and by breakfast-time this morning got home with over two hundred ! How many, Andrew ?" " You're right." " Yes, two or three hundred. Devil take me, if I couldn't have caught a three-bushel bag full as easy as not!" This information was somewhat exciting, and gave rise to a desire, on the part of the more impressible members of the invasion, to commence demonstra- tions against the enemy forthwith. With this view, Doctor Blandy inquired of Towers the distance to the falls. " About eight miles," answered the castellan qui- etly. " And how is the road ?" "The .road — road, did you say! The middle of the river is the best road I know." "You can't ride to them, then?" "There is a sort of a way over the hills, if you WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 57 could find it. But that stops at the laurel, just be- fore you come to Laurel run." "What's the laurel?" asked Triptolemus, open- ing his eyes. "You'll learn enough about it, Mr. Todd, before you leave here — more than j^ou '11 care about know- ing, I reckon," observed Mr. Towers, with a smile of superiority at Murad's ignorance of the laurel. " The laurel, Mr. Todd, is the big laurel of these re- gions, that borders all the streams; and it's about as much as a man can do to get through it, let alone a horse." "Ugh — uh !" replied Trip — which was a queer sort of laughing chuckle that characterized that gen- tleman upon all occasions. It was clear that the falls of the Potomac were out of the question that evening ; and notwithstand- ing all manner of trout were leaping up and down them in our mind's eye, we desisted for the present from any further investigations as to the way by which they were to be reached. " But, Towers," said Mr. Botecote, authoritatively, " there must cei'tainly be some place near here where we could have some pretty fair sport for an hour or so. I would like to add a few fish to your sup- per." At this announcement, Mr. Towers looked a little astonished, and replied, confusedly — for Peter's manner was something lofty and imposing — 68 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. " Oh yes, certainly, Mr. 1 really didn't hear your name — " " Botecote," said Peter. " Certainly, Mr. Botecote — I didn't think of that ; I really thought now a couple of hundred might do you !" " You started with two hundred, raised immedi- ately to three hundred — may have four hundred by this time — and with all, Mr. Towers, I may pos- sibly go to bed only tantalized with them." " If there is one in the house this minute, there 's four hundred, big and little ! May the ^" "Be it so, then, Mr. Towers, and don't swear. I'll lay me down here on this settle, and methinks I'll take a nap." "To-morrow, then, we'll begin the attack." " Bright and early." "When the hunter's horn is first heard on the golden hills." " And I'll go with you," said Mr. Towers, " and show you the ground. We'll make a day of it — fish up to the falls and back. Those that don't want to go so far, can stay below here at some pools in the river. There's one pool that I call Ashmun's pool, after Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts. May be some of you know him. Devil take my lights now, if he didn't pull out of that pool a basketful ! One of them weighed a pound and a half; if it didn't, you may drown me !" WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 59 "Ugli — iih !" exclaimed Triptolemiis. "J^o doubt about it," resumed Towers. You see he fished with the fly, which is a sort of curiosity to our fish, and rather takes 'em in for a little while. But give me the worm, after all." "You fish with the worm, then, Mr. Towers?" " Yes — anything I can lay my hands on." "Did you ever try the bug?" "The bug? what's the bug?" " The Prior there has one. You ought to see it ! I venture to say that every large trout in the stream will make at it." " What's it like ?" asked Towers. " Here's a likeness of it," replied the artist, ta- king out his pencil, and drawing a rather exagger- ated caricature of it. " Devil take me," exclaimed Mr. Towers, " if it won't scare the biggest trout that ever swam the Potomac ! That thing ! Why, what sort of a bug do you call it?" " It's called the trout hum-bug," said Peter. " Well, gentlemen, 1 had thought that may be I might some time or other try the fly, and see what I could do with it ; but if ever you get me to at- tempt that thing, may the But there's no use talking about it. Come along, Andrew, and get out some oats for the horses. The best oats you ever saw, gentlemen. Hustle, Andrew! — hustle along !" 60 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. And so away hurried the castellan, with Andrew after him — Towers going off with a vehement, per- pendicular movement, like one of the old grasshop- per engines on the railroad, when under a great press of steam. " I think the Prior's bug was too much for our host," observed the artist. "He's a worm-fisher !" said Doctor Blandy dis- dainfully. " If I were you. Prior, when I got my bug out to-morrow, I wouldn't let him come on the same side of the river with me." "What a remarkably high mover he is!" said Trip. " If the governor of Winston's performance comes anywhere near the promise of his speech and move- ment, we shall fare well, both man and horse." And this fair promise was not broken to the sense — it was fairly kept. The oats were as fine as ever grew — heavy, polished, hard, plump, and golden ; and Andrew was only too liberal in dispensing them to each whynnying and pawing horse. As for our- selves, Gil Bias and Scipio ate no such supper in their retreat at Lirias. Fifty fine trout, all beautiful- ly embrowned, and like Ate, hot from — the flames below, came and went, and came and went again ; and so lightly did they sit upon our bosom's lord, that it seemed all illusion — the insubstantial and pageant supper of a dream — to divest the mind of which fallacy, nothing but the appropriate disposi- WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 61 tion of a series of venison-steaks could suffice. A^- ter some protracted effort, however, in this way, the ilhision was finally driven out from the mind, and we were happy in the content of the succeeding hours — hours spent in dreamy silence, or in easy conver- sation upon subjects appertaining to the gentle phi- losophy of Epicurus. And so, without a disturbing thought, indolently reclining around, we whiled the time away. Thus passing the first hours of the night, at length we went to bed; and while yet conscious of bliss, sleep mingled itself stealthily in with the visions of the mountains and the rivers that were passing in ever-changing procession over the brain : each vis- ion growing more indistinct as the long procession swept on — until at length, with the splash of some leaping trout in your ear, and his bright colors gleaming in your eye, sound and sight were gone. Such is the sleep of those who travel high mount- ain-regions, or sail the salt seas in temperate climes. Such was at first the sleep of Uiis expedition, light as the early mist on the river. But, by-and-by, its folds descended more heavily upon us — heavy as a cloud; and then it became musical — ravishing the ear of night with a varied harmony, a concord in discord of flutes, and soft recorders, and horns — the loud bassoon, with every now and then a turn of the hurdy-gurdy, and sometimes the drone of the bagpipe. Kossini is said to have caught the idea 62 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. of tlie song of the barber, in his great opera, from the braying of an ass. Had he heard this sleep, a far more wonderful strain would have streamed forth beneath the fingers of the immortal composer ! No Lilliputian slumber shall this chronicle record it, if I can help it — but rather that such as swelled grandly forth upon the night air, nightly, through- out the Brobdignag realms ! THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 63 CHAPTER YI. THE BLACKWATER INVASION DETERMINED UPON. The head fountain of the Potomac rises high on the eastern side of the dividing Allegany ridge, not far below the cone of the mountain, and near the boundary-stone planted by Lord Fairfax to mark the farthest limit of that princely territory — embra- cing all the country lying between the waters of the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers — which he inher- ited as a grant from the British crown. The Potomac is formed, in its very beginnings, by the union of sev- eral smaller springs with this head-spring, as they descend the steeps of the mountain. The little riv- ulet, pursuing its course aloni>: the base of the Back- bone, is gradually augmented by the springs that flow down in every direction through the ravines around, until it attains a breadth of some thirty feet at the small falls, about five miles below its source. Below the falls there are some eight or ten streams making into it: the Big Laurel, Little Laurel, Sand run, and Shields's run, on the Maryland side ; the Horseshoe, Buffalo run, the Dog's Hind-Leg, and some others, on the Virginia shore. This accession 6^1: THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. of little streams swells it into quite a sizeable mount- ain-river by the time it reaches opposite to Winston. It is here some sixty feet wide — a clear, fresh, wild stream, reflecting every pebble that lies in its bed — shaded by stately forests, and fringed with vines and flowers. Of course, it is filled with trout ; and although it is a good deal fished by those who fre- quent here in the summer, yet it still continues to yield up its treasure in sufficient abundance for the constant supply of the table at Winston. For two days we made unceasing war throughout this Potomac region, as far up as the falls. The first day we brought in over two hundred fish, some of them of fine size. The second day we took more, having invaded some of the larger tributary streams mentioned above. So it will be seen we had trout in abundance. When the third day came round, there was a gen- eral desire expressed, when we assembled at the breakfast-table, to foray in some new country. We had invaded the Potomac in all reason — having in these two days pretty well gone over the ground hereabouts. The mind of desultory man is still as studious of change, and pleased with novelty, under our republican order of things, as it has been here- tofore under the older polities of the world. Indeed, it is a characteristic of our American Saxon, exceed- ing that of all others of the Saxon, or any other com- bination. . . . But where to go? — that is the ques- THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 65 tion. Mexico has been taken — and where shall we find a Cuba? Some proposed an incursion into the Glades, over about Snow creek, said to be unfre- quented ground : one was for the Evergreen-glades, another for the Oak-glades ; some for the lower Po- tomac — but there were rattlesnakes down the river, it was said, and that was a damper. In this variety of opinion, the indolent policy prevailed : and it was determined to pass the day siih tegmine — ram- bling over the hills, and in the enjoyment of an easy, lounging time of it about the porches of the inn. Sitting on the long porch that fronts the river, enjoying the cool breeze that seems always to fan these hill-tops, some mention, among our other talk, happened to be made of ''The Canaan," or wilder- ness-country, over on the head-waters of the Cheat. It so happened that one of our party had been told, many years ago, that this land of Canaan was as perfect a wilderness as our continent contained, al- though it was not many miles away from the Glades on one side, and the long settled parts of Hardy and Eandolph counties on the other ; a country where the wild beasts of the forest yet roamed as unmo- lested as they did when the Indians lield possession of our borders ; a howling wilderness of some twen- ty or thirty miles' compass, begirt on all sides by civilization, yet unexplored. This statement was brought to mind by the casual mention of the coun- 66 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. trj as we sat talking iipon the porch ; and it led to mtich inquiry in regard to the wilderness. Our landlord, as soon as the subject was broached, en- tered largely into it, and dilated upon the wonders of the Canaan in very glowing terms. It was only a few years ago, he told us, that elk had been killed upon its boundaries, not far from the settlements, at a place called the Elk-lick. He said there w^ere deer in great herds — so wild, that they were almost tame. " And, gentlemen," he continued, with great animation, " if you can only reach the falls of the Blackwater, you can take more trout in an hour than you ever took before in all your lives." ^'Ugh — uh !" exclaimed Triptolemus, with his usual chuckle. " You don't tell me so !" said Peter, with open eyes and mouth. " If you say so," resumed Mr. Towers, " we'll go into the countiy — Andiew can take care of the house — and we'll have such fishing as was never heard of. But understand now, gentlemen, you've got to do a little of the roughest and hardest sort of walkino; and climbino^. Then there's the Iaui-el you must go thiough. And you mustn't mind sleep- ing on heuilock, and in the rain too — it's always raining over on the Bone." This was only applying additional stimulus to the desire that had already taken possession of us, and at all risks we determined to go on the mori'ow, pro- THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 67 vided we could secure the aid of two well-known hunters of this region to lead us on our way. Ac- cordingly, we despatclied a messenger to the house of Joe Powell, wlio lived on the borders of the Win- ston property, with a request that he would get John Conway, another hunter, living some miles farther off, and come down in the evening to see us. These men came over during the day, and it was all ar- ranged before they left us, that we would set off in the morning early for the Blackwater. Everything being put in train for the expedition, we gathered together on the long porch toward nightfall, and passed the time in much further dis- course upon the Canaan — commenting variously on the information we had gathered from Powell and Conway, who had been out as far as the smaller falls of the Blackwater, hunting deer in the winter- season, but had never been at the great falls of the stream — the existence of which they only infeired from the roar of water that filled the forest, when they were out there. In order that the reader may the better enter into the spirit of our wilderness adventure, we will take the liberty of introducing him more familiarly to our party. In a large arm-chair, spread out to the extent of his bulk, with his feet resting upon a bench, and leaning back against the railing of the porch, sat a gentleman — stout, ample, and muscular — with a 68 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. handsome face, rosy with bloom, and a pleasant twinkle of the eye, that told of the mirthful charac- ter of his mind. Just now, though, hi's countenance was grave and thoughtful. Rattlesnakes seemed to have taken entire possession of him, ever since we had determined upon our march into the wilder- ness ; and presently he put the following question to Mr. Towers, with great emphasis : — " Do you think, Mr. Towers, that my big fishing- boots — that very big pair, with the red tops, hang- ing up against the wall — will save me against the bite of a rattler?" " Oh, bless you, Mr. Butcut, there are none in these hills. If there were, I can assure you, sir — may I be hang-danged if I would live here a single day — not even to own Winston! A rattlesnake, sir, has never been seen higher up this way than some two miles below yonder, at the foot of that mountain — and then only one — and he had to clear out. It don't suit 'em up here. Seven miles off yonder, on the side of that mountain, there is a den of them — where there are a plenty — so thick, you can smell 'em. But they stay down in that region, and never come up this way." " That's what Powell says ; for I took him one side, and asked him particularly about them. I think I would go into a fit if I should happen to tread on one of the blasted reptiles !" . " Make yourself easy about them. I pledge you THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. G9 my lion est word, there a'n't aii}^ up here. The coun- try's too coolj or something or other, for them. The devil take me — but I believe if I was to see one of them, I would jump clean out of my skin! I'm monstrously afraid of 'em — and I confess it. I don't mind a wild-cat — he'll run from you : nor a bear, unless it's a she-bear, with cubs — and then look out, I tell you ! But rattlesnakes and copper-heads my nerves, somehow, won't stand. If I might take the liberty — you seem to have a little dislike to them yourself." " If you would put on a pair of thick cloth pan- taloons, and draw on a big pair of boots outside — such as mine yonder. Towers — I should suppose you would be safe from a bite." " I should hate to trust them any way ; rather not be struck at by them at all. Why, they have fangs an inch long !" " What would you do, if one was to bite you ?" "Just lie down and die — give it up at once." "IN'ot so," broke in the artist; "no necessity for dying at all. Take out your knife, and cut out the flesh round where you're struck — suck the wound — then burn some gunpowder into it — and you're safe enough." " Drink a pint or so of raw whiskey or brandy right off," observed the doctor, "and there's no danger." "Not so much from the snake, may be." 70 THE BLAOKWATER CHRONICLE. " If I am not mistaken, I read an account, a year or so ago, of an experiment made before the Frencli physicians, by which it was ascertained that a flask of olive-oil was a certain cure of the bite. Two conntry-people came in, received the bite of a viper, swallowed a flask of oil each, and experienced no other harm than a little drowsiness for a few days." " Swallow a good deal of sweet milk," said a coun- tryman sitting by. "I've known that to cure a man." " Ean-de-luce," replied the doctor, "rubbed on outwardly, and taken internally to prevent coagu- lation of the blood, would be good." " Well, now," said tlie countryman who spoke before, " for my part, I'm more afraid of a copper- head than I am of a rattlesnake ; for he never gives you any warning. He's a night snake, too — he'll bite at night, and the other won't." "How much olive-oil have you in the house?" inquired Peter. " I don't believe there's any," replied Towers ; " but I've got a plenty of castor-oil," if that would do." "Have you any fish-oil?" asked Triptolemus. "I think we had better drive a cow along," said Andante. "What wnnild you milk her in?" "In the frjnng-pan." "I am free to say, gentlemen," observed Mr. But- THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 71 cut, '' tliat I have more confidence in the brandy than anything else ; and, as that is more at hand, we'll each take a flask with us, in case of acci- dents." This proposition was readily assented to — and with it the subject of the rattlesnakes was about to be dismissed ; but in the meantime the artist had taken out his pencil, and drawn a caricature of But- cut pursued by a rattler — his hair on end — eyes '»7t/ ^.cTri^**^^- wide — nostril distended — fishing-rod, with a big trout on the end of it, dropped — and the rattler, with about twenty rattles on his tail, and his crest raised ready to strike, in hot pursuit ! The carica- The castellan was both as- " Isn't it like him ?" he exclaimed, and broke out into what an old-country- ture was well enough, tonished and delighted. '79 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. man of my acquaintance used to call an imhrurnpt laugh^ and took the drawing off to show it to his wife. Returning, he looked upon the Signer with more of deference than he had been disposed to show him before. His countenance had something of mingled wonder and delight as he fixed his eyes on him — some such expression as a man of the mid- dle ages might be supposed to wear on his face as he gazed upon some imposing magician or sorcerer that had just performed a wonderful feat of art. The rattlesnake terror had now altogether van- ished. The caricature had killed it efi'ectually ; and the conversation took another turn. " Towers, what wild animals are there over in the wilderness ?" "Plenty of them — bears, wolves, panthers, deer in crowds — some few elk, I reckon — and otters, and badgers — all the animals that ever were there." " Do they ever attack you ?" " Not unless they are particularly hungry, which can't be at this time of the year. Your fire at night will keep them away from you, any how ; though I have heard it said the panther has been known to walk between a party sleeping and the fire at their feet." "That, I suspect, was a dream of some one who had gone to sleep with the wild beasts running in his brains." "You have nothing to fear from the animals. THE INTASION DETERMINED UPON. 73 The only thing you have to fear is losing your- selves. But Powell and Conway are good woods- men ; and, besides, tliey have been partly in the country. There is a story about, which I've heard ever since I've been living up here, that a good many years ago a stranger went into the Canaan, and was never heard of afterward. Years after, the skeleton of a man was found by some of the hunters that had ventured furthest into the country." "That's very pleasant information for us, Mr. Towers. Do you think there is any chance of our leaving our bones out there ?" "Every man runs his chance." "The devil he does! Why, this Canaan is not altogether more than some twenty or thirty miles of country in length, and, I suppose, not wider. How could a man well get lost in that compass ?" " Oh, very easily. Why, in those mountains a man could walk about for a week, from sunrise till sunset, particularly if he got into a big laurel-brake, and never at any time be 'Q.ve miles from where he started, unless he blazed his way." Mr. Botecote mused somewhat seriously for a while upon this information, but finally came to the conclusion that the lost man and the skeleton was a fable, and that it was nonsense to talk about liis being lost in any five miles of country. This seemed to be the conclusion of the rest of us. There is some such legend always told by the bor- 4 74 THE BtACKWATER CHRONICLE. derers upon every wild country. But, again, such things are rather probable. Men have been lost before in countries far less wild than the Canaan turned out to be. However, we entertained no apprehensions of encountering anything worse than some endurable fatigue and hardship; and the con- versation passed off into general pleasantry and merriment, in which the castellan of Winston came in for a pretty good share of rather free raillery, aimed at those more prominent peculiarities, which the reader will by this time recognise as belonging to him. Murad the Unlucky, who had not said a word for an hour, but sat with his lame appurtenance thrown over the back of a chair, apparently drinking in the conversation like mothers' milk, now broke speech to the following effect : — "Well, Mr. Powers, I've just been thinking what a mighty talker you are ; you talk about like a horse I have at home runs. He beats everything in the whole country — but you can't rely on him; he won't keep the track." " Why, you don't think so, indeed ! Devil take my lights, I thought I was slow !" "Don't you think you stretch it a little, Con- ners?" said Murad, expressing himself a little plainer. " Every word true, Mr. Todd ; blast my eyes ! and more too ; I haven^t told you anything." THE INVASION DETERMmED UPON. 75 " Wliat ! all that about the rattlesnakes, and the bears, and the panthers, and elk, and such crowds of deer, and especially that about finding the bones of the lost man ! Ugh ! uh !" Here Murad mused a moment, and went on. "Towels, are you any relation to the Conners down our way ?" It must be observed that Murad, among his other unlucky traits, had an unlucky way of confounding the names of all persons he encounteied — a vice of his intellectual composition that nothing could eradicate ; and so upon this occasion, Towers's name was mixed up in his mind with Powell's and Con- way's — the two hunters — so inextricably, that he had none of them straight. "To the Conners, did you say, Mr. Todd? The Conners ! Devil take me, if I ever heard of any such people !" " Why, as you are of the same name, I thought you might be some kin." " May the devil ! — blamenation ! — if ever I saw — Conners — my name isn't Conners ! "There you are. Trip — at it again," said Peter, who seemed to take Murad under his especial su- pervision. "I'll swear, gentlemen, he hasn't called any single man, woman, child, or horse — anything by a right name, since we left home. Why, Triptolemus, Towers's name isn't Towels, or Powels, or Conners, or anything of the sort. It's 76 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. Towers^ Towers^ Towers — T-o-w, Tow — e-r-s, ers — Towers!" " Well, what's the odds ?" said Murad. " It don't make any such mighty difference. But you're some kin, a'n't you, Powels?" " Well, I dare say I am, if I only knew distinctly which of my relations you mean. But what makes you think so ?" " Why, you talk so fast, and so much, that you remind me of one Connel, a lawyer down our way — a great pleader — who can out-talk any man I ever heard, until I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance ; has a great gift of what they call the gab. You're a Virginian anyhow, a'n't you, Towels?" " I don't know what he is now, but his ancestors came out of Babbleon," said the artist. " Suffered under the old Babbleonish captivity," chimed in Galen. '' From which the race haven't yet been entirely redeemed," put in the Master. "Well, that's pretty well; but, may the devil take me, if I don't think some of Mr, Todd's an- cestors must have come out of the tower of Babel !" ''Right," said Peter — "right, governor. It's the only way of accounting for his confusion of names. And by the way. Trip, if you would bear tlie tower of Babel in mind, it miglit help you to get Towers's name right." THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 77 " It wont do," said the artist. His mind is essen tially a transposing one. He'd have it the bowei of Table!" " I give it up, then," said Peter, and he threw himself back in his arm-chair, with an air of resig- nation. "Well, but, gentlemen," said the doctor, in his very pleasant, gentlemanly manner — (Galen was very deliberate when about anything like a witti- cism, and having studied one out to suit himself, some time back, he was determined that it should not be lost, notwithstanding the conversation that made it appropriate had gotten away from him) — " Well, but, gentlemen," said he blandly, and with a certain tickling sensation of picasure upon his countenance, " this is letting Mr. Towers escape us. When we were running him about Babbleon just now, and fixing upon him a Babbleonish extraction, it occurred to me there must have been also some of the old Greek blood in him." "How do you make that out, doctor?" said Towers, smiling. "Why, by tracing your descent, Towers, in part, from the very famous old lawgiver of Sparta, Ly- curgus." "How is that? Wlio was this Lycurgus?" said the castellan, evidently very much flattered at the idea of being descended from any man with a name that he didn't understand. 78 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. *' He was an old Greek, Towers — a Lacedemoni- an," said the Prior, taking up the doctor's idea — " an old fellow named Cnrgus, one of the Curgiises of Sparta — a very remarkable family of people. But in the course of his life this old gentleman liad told so many stories, about one thing or another, that by way of distinguishing him from the other Curguses, the people of his parts used generally to call him Curgus, the story-teller or romancer. The length of this designation, however, being contrary to the genius of the Spartans, who were a people of few words ; they shortened it by calling him Lie-Curgus, which after a while came to be his re- ceived name." "There were a great many other distinguished Greeks who acquired their names in the same way," observed the artist, " there are the Liesanders." "And Lysemachus — a condensation you per- ceive, of Lies Tie "tnctkes us?'' "The Greek genius is characterized, from the earliest ages, by an aptitude for invention." " What monstrous fabrications some of those are which Homer relates !" " Don't talk about them," said Triptolemus, " my back stings me every time I think of them. Tlie whippings that I've had on account of them, are really horrible to think of." " What were you whipped for, Mr Todd ?" "Ignorance of Homer, Mr. Towels; undoubted THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 79 ignorance, sir — clear — clear as day — not the least mistake about it. But my ignorance of that difficult language, Mr. Connel was owing to my aversion to stories. Had Homer told the truth about the siege of Troy, I should have mastered him. You see. Towels, my feelings somehow or other were born on the Trojan side ; and as soon as I began Homer I knew^ it was all a Greek lie : you may say, therefore, that I fell at Homer. But don't distress yourself at this little passage in my biogra- phy ; I can assure you I haven't the same strong feelings in regard to your interesting account of the Canaan, although I must say I don't exactly believe all you tell us." "May the devil roast my lights and livers, gen- tlemen, if I don't begin to believe you really think I have been stretching it a little about the Black- water. ISTow do you know I haven't told you half I could tell you. The man's bones were found out there — I saw 'em myself — and for the deer, they are just in thousands ; and as for bears, why one of 'em had Andrew by the throat — I mean, devil take my lights — up a tree down here for an hour, one day, not two miles from this house — yes, on Win- ston — and he shot him too — didn't you Andrew ? And if you find a rattlesnake out there, why, I'll just give you leave to eat me, lights and all. As for the elk, I'll bring you a man, living not far fiom here, who will swear to you that he saw one him- 80 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. se'i', that was shot, not more than three years ago. jNow I'll tell you what, gentlemen, I'll take an even bet with any of you, that you get lost notwithstand- ing you've got Powell and Conway with you — two as good woodmen as ever went into the woods." " I don't care if we do," said the artist, " I'll fish in the Blackwater in spite of my bones." "If all the wild beasts of the wilderness howl around my path, I'll stand by the Signor's bones," said the Prior. "If I could only feel certain about the rattle- snakes," said Peter, "it would take off the only weight on my mind. But between my boots and the brandy, I will defy them." " The idea of driving a cow in for the milk cure is abandoned, I suppose." " Put up a plenty of provisions, Towers. I can stand anything better than starvation." " Yes, gentlemen, and if you don't come back on the day you say, I'll get up a party and go in after you." "Eight — right; but I thought you were to go along, Mr. Powway." "There you are again, Trip, its intolerable — absolutely ridiculous. "Will you never learn to call him Towers ! You have no idea how it disturbs the flow of the conversation." "I think, gentlemen," said Galen, delicately sug- gesting it, " that if Triptolemus would commit some THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 81 verses to memory that had the word towers in them, he might possibly control this bias he labors under." " A good idea — try it, Trip." " Ugh — uh !" said Murad, with his peculiar ejac- ulation. "There you're too much forme again, I don't tliink I ever knew any in my life." " Well, then, gentlemen, we'll give him some." "Begin — some one." " I will, willingly," said Peter. • "'Day sat on Norham's castled towers,'" — " Day didn't," said the artist, " it set on :N'orham's * castled steep' — that won't do. Try it again." " I have a glimmering of a line that ends with hostile towers — but I can't make it out exactly." "The gentle Surrey," said Galen, and then stop- ped short. "What of Surrey?" "I thought it was something about towers — but it isn't — it's 'loved his lyre.'" "That's it— that will do," said Trip, "that will remind me of him — if you can find nothing better." "There's a verse, gentlemen," said the Prior, "that has something about towers hedight — but I can't come at it. It ends with temples (md towers hedight. Do any of you remember it ?" "Towers bedight!— Towers be d d!— Lets go to supper," said the artist. And to supper we 4* 82 thp: blackwater cheonicle. went — Towers bediglit or Towers be- what you please, leading the way, and altogether delighted at the prominent figure he cut in the evening's conversation. The supper had a subduing effect upon the viva- city of our spirits ; and so, with a due regard to the Blackwater invasion on the morrow, we retired early to bed. The bright clear moon looked in aus- picious through the curtains of our windows — and to the gentle lullaby of the Allegany night-breeze we fell fast asleep. THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 83 CHAPTEE YII. THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC AND A SOMEWHAT PAR- TICULAR DESCRIPTION OF THE ARRAY. It was somewhere about four o'clock next morn- ing when we began to give out in sleeping ; and so, lightly and airily, with gentle breathings, whisper- ingly, we now soon finished off the last delicate touches and roundings of our dreams about bears, and panthers, and rattlesnakes, and lost babes in the woods (meaning tliereby ourselves), &c., &c., just as the early cock uplifted his clear clarion, and roused his dame Pertelotte and all the attendant damsels of the roost from their slumbers. How finely our old first poet — he who " left half told The story of Cambuscan bold," — famous Chaucer — head of the English poet peer- age — has pictured the gallant chanticleer: — "His comb was redder than the fine corall, Embattled as it were a castel wall ; His bill was black, and as the jet it shone, Like azure were his legges and his tone. His nails were whiter than the lily flower, And like the burned gold was his colour." 84 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. And how, with the soul of eloquence and poetry he makes him discourse — hear again: — "He knew by kind, and by none other lore, That it was prime, and crew with blisful steven, Tlie soune, he said, is clomben up on heven, Twenty degrees and on, and more y wis ; Madam Pertelotte, my worlde's blis, Herkeneth the blisful birddes how they sing, And see the fresh flowers how they spring ; Fill is mine harte of revel and solas." And again ; what a lordly cozener is our chanti- cleer — what handsome flattery of his dame — and with what pleasant humor he trifles with the sex. "But let us speak of mirthe, and stinte all this, Of o thing God has sent me large grace, For when I see the beauty of your face. Ye ben so scarlet red about your eyen, It maketh all ray drede for to dien : For all so sicker as, in principio " Mulier est hominis in confusio, (Madam, the sentence of this Latin is. Woman is man's joy and man's blis.)" And then how like a prince — royal in his port, and gallant is he — very much after the model of Henry lY. of France, when in the midst of his dames. " He loketh as it were a grim leoun. And on his toos he rometh up and down : Him deigned not to set his feet to ground: He chukketh when he hath a corn yfound, And to him rennen then his wives alle." TIIE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 85 The reader is now aware, that some time since, the early cock had proclaimed the morning. In the beautiful verse of Chatterton — "The feathered songster chanticleer, Had wound his bugle-horn, And told the early mountaineer The coming of the morn." It is now broad day, and the ruddy streaks are beginning to glimmer in the east. Up rise we, then, one and all, and shout aloud, " For the Blackwater !" The doors and windows are thrown wide open, and the mountain atmosphere — three thousand feet here above the sea — is all about us ; and if you have never tried it, O unblessed lowlander ! you can have no idea of its extremely animating powers : there are few things more stirring to both body and soul. It compels to many extravagances of both speech and action. Especially it makes you sing, whether you can or not : and so it was that, chanting songs of the morning, we made our orisons to the god of day, Phoebus Apollo, now emerging in all-unutterable glory through the golden portals of the east: — " Thou splendid luminary ! honored, in some form or other, by all the nations of old ; proclaimed prince of the lights of heaven throughout all the realms of Christendom ; worshipped by the barbarian, wonder of the savage ; saluted in thy rising with the clash of cymbals and gongs, and the flourish of trumpets and horns, the roll of drums, and the roar of morn- 86 THE BLA.OKWATER CHRONICLE. ingguns; man everywhere doing thee homage — in the old East, prostrate with slavish adoration ; here in the new West, standing erect (as I do now), and with dilated chest, pouring out his soul in hymns of praise, as befits his free-born nature! — Great God-send of all mankind ! particularly of all poets and orators ; filling the world with the grand- est of the grandeurs of simile, and trope, and meta- phor ; also at the same time usefully beneficent in imparting both light and heat, without which this earth would be about as dark and cold as a rat-hole, and almost as fit to live in — really the dim spot that a disconsolate philosophy would make it out to be ! — Beneficent and beautiful mystery ! such as thou art here in thy rising over these broken and piled-up AUeganies ; lighting up the grand counte- nance of Nature around, as with the smile and the glory of a god ! no wonder that all languages and tongues, even from the Chaldee down to our mod- ernest Brother-Jonathan dialects, should be exhaust- ed in the utterance of such a worship." — ("Good- morning, Mr. Towers. You seem to be in consid- erable astonishment. Take a seat. The expedition, through Mr. Butcut, is addressing the great lumi- nary, whose gorgeous rising we take to be a happy omen for our enterprise.") — " Fountain of light and life! — hailed by the choir of birds; encircled by clouds of gold ; fair as a bride and fiery as a bride- groom ! thee to resemble — thee! — that w^as the THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 87 very boy's first wish and proud desire, through every vicissitude of fortune, amid the glitter of prosperity, above the tempests of mischance, to maintain an undecaying splendor !" After this address to the rising Splendor — part of which was made once before by Alcibiades when a banished man in Thrace at the court of King Seuthes — where, it will be remembered by the learned reader, he outdrank the w^hole barbarian court — the king, queen, princes, courtiers, warriors, ladies-in-waiting, and all — thus fulfilling his match- less destiny — peerless in everything, even in these wild Thracian orgies — after this address to the great luminary, we speedily arrayed ourselves, and forth- with appeared below-stairs, as respectable and pic- turesque a set of outlaws in appearance as ever robbed a rich grandee of his gold, plundered mon- astery or cathedral of old of its molten gold and sil- ver, or bore away shrieking maiden to the hidden fastness in the forest. It was in this order that we began our march : Tliree of us were on hoi*seback, with wallets hung across our saddles, containing the provant for the expedition — which provision consisted of six large loaves of bread ; some pounds of ground coffee ; sugar ; about ten pounds of middling of bac<^n, to fry our trout with ; a boiled ham ; salt, pepper — and that's about all. Cigars and tobacco to smoke, each adventurer carried about his own person, to- 88 THE BLACK WATER CHRONICLE. getlier with a flask of spirits to cure himself in case he was bitten by a rattlesnake, or perad venture to prepare his system beforehand against any delete- rious efi'ects from the bite — a somewhat unnecessa- ry precaution, indeed, since we were all pretty well convinced there were no snakes in the Canaan. Three of us were afoot — two of our original party and Powell, one of the hunters — he equipped, among other things, with his rifle ; Conway, the other hunt- er, we were to pick up on the way. We were to ride and walk alternately — ride and tie — until we reached the end of the settlements, which was as far as we could take the horses. Pursuing the Northwestern road some three miles, we reached the top of the Backbone ridge. Here, turning at right-angles to the left, we followed a mountain-road along the top of the ridge for some miles, which at length took its course along the eastern side of the mountain, gradually growing into a mere single horse-track, until we reached Con- way's house, the last settlement in this direction. Here w^e picked up Conway, with his rifle and fry- ing-pan ; and after a walk of some six miles or more through a most noble forest of sugar-trees, the beech, maple, wild-cherry, balsam-firs, and hemlocks, and over tracts of land wonderfully fertile, judging by the great size of the trees, and the growth of the wild timothy uj^on one or two slight clearings we passed through, we at length descended into a beau- THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 89 tiful little glade — more properly a dale in the mount- ains — some three hundred yards wide and two or three miles long, where we were to turn out our horses to pasture until our return. This dale is girt round upon its edges by a broad belt of the Rhododendron — commonly called the hig laurel out here — which makes the dale a safe enclosure for keeping our horses ; for it is impossi- ble that a horse can make his way through it, so thick and lapped together everywhere are its branch- es. We had to enter it by a path cut out for the purpose. When within, we barricaded the entrance by piling up some young trees and brushwood (which was equivalent to putting up the bars in a 90 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. fenced field), and rode on down the middle of tlie wild meadow, tlirongli green grass, knee-high, and waving gently in the summer wind, until we reached a small stream, whose banks were overgrown with osiers and other delicate shrubs. This w^as the infant Potomac, destined before it reached the sea to expand into that mighty river on whose broad bosom whole navies may ride in safety or " flame in battle ;" and also famous all over Christendom for that it holds fast-founded by its shores the capital of the star- emblazoned republic. Here we halted and dis- mounted — took oif saddles and bridles — turned our horses loose — and prepared ourselves to enter the untrodden wild that rose up before us, dark with the glimmer and the gloom of the immemorial woods ! Before the expedition moves, it is necessary that we should enter into a few particulars descriptive of the adventurers in the new aspect in wdiich we are about to present them to the reader. Behold, then, at about one o'clock in the day, the knights-errant of the Blackwater, in the middle of this little grassy dale of tlie Potomac. Let us point them out to the reader by name, and in a gen- eral w^ay by character. First, there stands before you a slight, elastic, and somewhat gaunt gentleman, with a dark, con- centrated eye, sunk deep beneath a marked and rugged brow. The expression of his face at pres- THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 91 ent is particularly indicative of that sort of energy and determination of character, which is very apt to make its possessor what is vulgarly called head-devil in all matters of feud, foray, or what- ever enterprises that might be classed under the designation of marauding — all dare-devil achieve- ments. The imagination of the wilderness before him, has called into play these latent qualities of his nature. Tliis gentleman wears a beard, after the fashion of the middle ages, that has held undis- turbed possession of his lower face for now some fifteen years ; with all his present surroundings, it gives him the look of a brigand as in a picture ; meet him in the streets of a capital, and it would impress you with the idea that he was a practition- er of astrology, or some other occult matter — may be some Italian philanthropist, or revolutionary conspirator — the friend of liberty all over the world, wherever liberty had a market : his disdain of a feather and all melo-dramatic show of appear- ance, precludes any idea of the Hungarian, as re- cently impressed upon our minds. He wears a green cloth cap, with a straight, projecting square visor to it, like the European military caps. An old black coat, with gray pantaloons, and a pair of rough boots with large red tops — these drawn on outside complete his dress. He has no small wal- let strapped to his back — a blanket and a great coat rolled up constitute it. Around his neck is 92 THE BIACKWATER CHRONICLE:. suspended an artist's sketcli-book. In his right hand is a frving-pan. This is our artist, the Signor Andante Strozzi. Of course, he is of the ilhistrious Florentine family of that name, some one of his ancestors having escaped from the feuds and broils of Italy, some centuries ago, and taken refuge on these shores. Tlie name has changed so much in the course of time, and one thing and another, here with us, that you would hardly recognise it, as it is spelt and pronounced now in these days of demo- cratic disdain of all things appertaining to a man's name and lineage. "We, however, his more learned friends, and not too extreme in our democracy, choose to call him, according to the old Italian spel- ling and sound — Strozzi. There is a Dutch family in rennsylvania, the Strodes, who are disposed to trace their origin in the same way from the Strozzi ; but this they have no right to do. The Strodes are Teutonic in their descent : they are the old Saxon — the undoubted High Dutch : Stride was the name originally. The Strides, Striders, Strodes, and all these, are of German extraction, and in fact the same people originally. Our friend is the true Strozzi, however ; and he shows his Itahan origin by the peculiar beard he weai*s, his love of and ge- nius for the arts (^particularly those of painting and musicV and some slight brigandish characteristics that belong to him, which last make him a some- what danirerotis antaixonist for man or beast to dallv THE DALE ON TIIE POTOMAC. 98 with, and therefore one in every way tlic very per- son for an expedition into the Canaan — a man wlio wonld hmgh a hear in the face, and take particnlar pleasure in pitching into a pantlier ; one wlio Avould he ahout as careless of conseqnences in any encoun- ter as either of these two hist-named gentk^nien ! So much for the Signor Andante Strozzi. That stout, thick-set, well knit gentleman, whose manner is somewhat eager, with lace in a glow, eye red, and mouth open — look at him! lie is lahoring at present under an undue quantity of ex- citement. The idea of the wilderness has electritied his system into intense sensation. His ideas are exagi}:erated out of all hounds. Tie has just tinished strapping on his shoulders an immense wallet, big enough for a mule to carry. But he looks stout, and broad, and strong — is well made — and you think it is all right, and that he has generously loaded himself according to his greater power. Well, he'll be tested presently. This is the gentle- man who had the pleasant conversation with Tow- ers yesterday, on the porch, about the rattlesnakes. He wears an old brown sack-coat. His boots are drawn on outside his pantaloons, and they are very big, and stout, and rough, and reach up to his knees : he bought them as a special defence against the rattlesnake. On his head he has a broad- brimmed, black, slouch hat. (h\ liis shoulders lie has the aforesaid large roll. In his right hand he 94 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. has a stick of laurel, witli portions of the root at- tached, and which is as tall as himself. Tied to his waist behind is a bit of sheepskin w4th th6 wool on it, that he may have something soft to sit down upon when he rests himself in the wilderness. You perceive he goes in for the conveniences of life. On the whole survey of this gentleman, you would say that he was the make and look of a man to lift or carry a heavy weight, or to pull up a sapling by its roots — to hit a hard blow; good at knocking down and dragging out ; but not the best show of a man for a hard walk, or climbing mountains, or getting well through a half-mile brake of the rhododendron. This is Mr. Butcut. That thin, sinewy, hard, tough-looking gentleman, resting himself upon his sound leg, which is his left, and a-tiptoe on his right, which is his broken one, shortened and stiffened at the knee, is Mr. Triptole- mus Todd — our Murad the Unlucky. In consider- ation of his lameness, it has been decreed that he shall carry no burden ; yet of his own accord he has mounted Powell's rifle, the muzzle of which he has pointed right in among us ; but, as he is un- doubtedly the most heedless man in the United States, we have taken care that there shall be no priming in the pan. This remarkable gentleman's mind has been, somehow or other, impressed with an extraordinary idea of the wonderful and amazing in regard to the Fairfax stone, and he is now look- THE DALE ON THK POTOMAC. 95 ing away off up the dale, as far as possible, to see if he can't discover it. He has a confused idea in his mind that this Fairfax stone is the biggest thing of its sort in the state of Yii-ginia; but he has no definite idea about it : it may be like the rock of Gibraltar, or the rock of ages ; it may be a basaltic pillar, like Lot's wife, or it may be a great, huge tablet, upon Avhich some boundary hieroglyphics have been carved. Of course, therefore, he has no very definite idea of the sort of thing he's looking for. Just at this moment something vague looms up before his intent gaze into the distance, and his face is all ablaze with excitement as he exclaims, stretching his long, sinewy arm far before him, with his fingers spread out, and all pointing difterent ways — ''''Fellows^ yonder' s Fairfax's stone /" Mu- rad is a light, wiry man, of some five feet ten inches in stature ; and, without going into particu- lars, we will only say of him that he has a look of exposure about him, as if the heavens — cold and hot — the suns of August and the snows of Decem- ber — had been contending for him for many years, with such equal success, that neither of them had been able to take him entirely. His dress is a very indifi'erent one. It is torn in several places already ; and the fear is that before we get back he will have none of it, and that we shall have to paint him, or rather stain him with the juice of berries, to pre- 96 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. serve him from absolute exposure — fix him up like Prince Yortigern — "A painted vest Prince Yortigern had on, Which from a naked Pict his sire had won !" To tell the whole truth in regard to Murad, there never was a man that went upon an expedition of any sort with so little preparation and under such unlucky circumstances. He had but one suit of woollen clothes with him, all the rest being light summer linens, of no use here. His pocket-book, with some bank-notes in it, he left behind upon his table, and had only a small purse with some six or seven dollars of silver in it. He had a note in bank for a thousand dollars, due three days after he left home, and for which he had made no provision ; and, in the hurry of shaving himself to get off in time, he had cut a great gash in his cheek, which gave him a look as of a sabre-cut received years ago at some such battle as Borodino or Waterloo, or on Pompey's side at Pharsalia, where Csesar's veterans aimed at the face. — But enough of Mr. Todd : the reader will now be able to picture him sufiiciently well for the purposes of this narrative. The next gentleman that we shall introduce is Doctor Adolphus Blandy. You see him there over on the other side of this little rivulet, the Potomac, in the act of taking an affectionate leave of that powerful dapple-gray with the bobbed tail. He THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 9T has just imprinted a kiss upon the soft muzzle of tlie gray. Ilis gentle heart is touched that Kinaldo has to be committed to the rude mercy of the wild beasts of Canaan for so many days ; and with a tear of repentance that he brought him here, and a sigh of regret that he has to leave him, has made his farewells — half in fear he shall never see Kinaldo again this side of horse-heaven. The doctor is a very dainty gentleman, and given much to personal elegance of life. He is equipped at all points. His large boots come fully up to the knee, and they are soft and pliable, made of the best French leather. His doublet-coat is substantial, with many conveni- ent pockets, and fits him comfortably. He has a quarter-dollar rough straw-hat, tied round with a red riband in a good bow-knot. As he is near- sighted, he wears a pair of gold spectacles. Blandy is a large, fine-looking man, and he is of an easy and gracious presence. There is a sort of disdain about him of the big wallet that he has strapped to his shoulders; he seems to feel that it should be borne by a menial. He has evidently been trained to a life of luxurious ease — like Dives, has been clothed in purple and fine linen, and fed daily upon dainties. Ennuied with indulgence, he has come into the wilderness, to purchase, at the expense of its hardships, a new zest to his existence — a zest which the fortune of his condition can not other- wise afford him. — But enough of Blandy. Let us 5 98 THE BLACKWATEK CHKONICLE. picture to you another gentleman, ^ — 'remarkable among the sons of men — also among their daugh- ters. There, off at the edge of the vale, at the foot of a branching tree, stands one who is no bad idea of the famous knight of La Mancha, if you would only suppose the immortal Don to have been not quite so raw-boned as history has recorded him. This gentleman is somewhat tall, and of a loose and dangling aspect, in keeping with the somewhat care- less ease of his character. To look at him now, as he stands, you w^ould suppose him in the act of pro- pitiating the god of the wilderness with votive offer- ings ; for he has just finished hanging up on the lowermost branches of that beautiful and fairest tree all the saddles and bridles, and other horse- equipments, ro welled spurs and whips, &c. ; and with his large and lustrous eye (" heaven-eyed crea- ture," as Wordsworth calls Coleridge) resting in pleasure upon the picturesque grouping he has ef- fected of them, you easily imagine him some deep enthusiast of the forest, hanging his votive offerings upon the wilderness-god's shrine. Lingering he stops, absorbed in what he has done ; then turns slowly away, and having reached the party in the middle of the dale, he exclaims earnestly, " Well, gentlemen, I don't think the wild beasts can eat up our saddles and bridles, spurs and whips, any how — no matter what they may accomplish upon our THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 101 like manner as Powell — each with bis rifle and poiicli. But we are dallying too long here in the dale — we must up and away! Let us begin tbe march, however, in ajiother chapter. 102 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. CHAPTER YIII THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. Powell is in the lead followed by Conway, and we all start with a shout upon our walk — jumping the baby Potomac with a bound, and falling into a line of single file — winding through the long grass by a track made by the deer coming down into the dale to drink. The Signer waved his frying-pan aloft, and shouted out gayly the burden of some old hurrah song. The Master doubled up his hand and blew upon it for a buglet. Peter capered along THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 103 nimbly, in dancing measure, like a fairy on the green — big wallet and all. Trip threw out his game leg, sweeping it against the tall grass, as a mower sweeps his scythe. And the Doctor took his last lingering look of Kinaldo — waved his lily hand and sighed adieu — "Adieu, for evermore, my love, And adieu, for evermore!" The horses snorted and plunged around us, with their tails flung over their backs, and hovered along our line, until we came to the belt of laurel that girts the edge of the meadow, when they wheeled, and left us to our fate — and we them to theirs. In a few moments we were breaking our way through the thick tangled branches of the laurel, and in mud and water half up to our knees. But we fought the way gallantly, and, gaining the firm groutid, began the ascent of the mountain by a winding deer-track — the same we had followed through the dale. About half a mile up we halted by the little Elk- lick — a deep and wood-embosomed gouge — as the hunters called it — in the side of the mountain, filled with black marsh-ooze, in which were little pools of stagnant, saltish water. Here the boldest held his breath for awhile, in expectation of getting a shot at a deer. But whatever chance there might have been for this, it was soon destroyed by the loud outcries of Mr. Butcut, who was yet some distance down the 104 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. mountain. Presently that gentleman came up, with his face about the color of a full-blown peony, the perspiration rolling down from him, and blowing hard like an over-driven horse. " Oh! I'll be if I can stand tliis," he gasped out vehemently. '' By the Apostle Paul ! gentlemen" — (Peter is very familiar with Shakspeare, and is the best amateur actor of high tragedy in our country to-day ; had he gone on the stage early in life, he would have undoubtedly acquired an unsurpassed name in our theatrical annals) — " By the Apostle Paul ! gentle- men," he exclaimed in a manner unconsciously tragic, " this mountain has cast more terror into the soul of Richard than he can w^ell endure." And re- lapsing immediately into the commonplace, he went on. '' And don't you all know well enough, gentle- men, that I'm rather thick- winded at best, and here you have fairly run away from me up this infernal, all-fired hill, as you call it — hill indeed ! Powell, how far are we from the top ?" "Not more than a mile or so, I reckon, Mr. Butcut." "A mile or so! There it is — I knew it would be this ^yaj. Fellows, let's turn back." This he said bigly. It was received with a burst of derision. " Let me make a proposition. If you turn back I'll agree to pay all the expenses of the expedition, from home and back." " Fiddle-de-de !" said one. THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 105 ^''Devdl take you and all expenses of all sorts!" said another. "IS-ot for your whole estate, in fee simple !" said a third. ''m money can buy us!" said Triptolemus. "Hear me, gentlemen," said Mr. Butcut, entreat- ingly, "of course I had no idea that the money could influence you. I didn't mean that. I'll give the money to any charity you may designate. And Powell and Conway, I'll give you five dollars more than you were to get." "mt so !" said the artist, "you shall do no such thing !" "We don't want anything more than was agreed upon !" said both Powell and Conway. "Ugh, uh!" said Triptolemus. "You advised me not to come, did you !" " You'll get along better, Peter, after the first blow or two !" "The acquirit vires eundo, will apply to you after awhile, But, don't entertain any despair!" "I can't stand it, gentlemen, I tell you, and carry this load on my back— I'm no horse !" It will be perceived by the reader, that Mr. But- cut made a very determined attempt to bi-eak up the expedition, here at the Elk-lick, but all to no avail. His mutinous designs were promptly crushed in the bud. It being clear that nothing was to be 106 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. gained in this way, he was determined that he would get rid of his burden. " Well, gentlemen," he said, laughing, " I confess that I've failed in my vigorous effort to turn you back : that's no go^ certainly : — of course I wasn't in earnest. But really, seriously speaking, I'm no horse, and can't carry all this load." " What's a blanket and a great-coat to a stout man like you, two feet and a half at least over the shoulders ?" " If you think it's nothing, suppose you just feel it." Here he unstrapped his wallet, and handed it round for inspection. It was, in fact, a great deal heavier than any of us had imagined, large as it looked. So it was determined that he must be lightened of his load. Accordingly the wallet was unrolled — and no wonder it was so heavy ; for instead of containing merely a single blanket and a great-coat, the blanket was found to be a large new double one, and in addition to this, there was an old, thick- wadded coverlet of a bed, commonly called a Yankee-blanket, that had been used as a saddle-blanket, until it had grown doubly heavy from the grease and perspiration it had accumulated in a long horseback service. Peter, very provident of his creature comforts, with the intention of being extra luxurious when in camp at night, had very quietly, and unknown to the party, secured this treasure to his own use. It was really, therefore, THE MAKCH INTO THE CANAAN. 107 no such great wonder that the first half-mile of the Backbone had been too much for him. Such a mountain is a pretty stiff encounter for a man of no superfluous flesh, and the soundest lungs — and so the lightest of us found it ; but a thick-set, stout- built, two hundred pounder of a gentleman, yet in the soft condition, and with not the best breathing apparatus in the world — a butcut like But, will attest the quality of his metal, whenever he at- tempts to match himself against the Bone of the Alleganies, and that, too, even though he has not a heavy-wadded blanket additional in his wallet. The reader will understand now, that the only thing really the matter with Mr. Botecote, was that he had overloaded himself, as was intimated when we were down in the dale of the Potomac. So, hanging the discountenanced encumbrance upon a limb of the nearest tree, he took heart again, and once more grew animated with all the hope of the Blackwater. " Come, move on, men," he exclaimed, as he strapped on his shoulder his now diminished bur- den. " This is something like. I can stand it now with any of you. Move on, Powell." And the expedition moved again. It was hard work in good earnest. But we went on up the rugged steep, scrambling our way as best we could, now through the thick underwood, now in among great masses of rock, and over fallen trees so de- composed that they would not bear your weight, lOS THl Kl \rK\V\TKK OHKONIOI.K. until wo roaohod what soomod to bo tho top ot' tlio iiiountaiii. Horo thoso wlu> woro I'oroniost oallod a halt, and sat down to rost upon a mossy li^g duit iniboddod you tor about a toot. Tho otliors oanio strauLilinixin — Triptolon\us talliui; in, with liis arms sproad out bot'oro him, and his lauio log out in tho air behind, as though it didn't bolong to him, and crviuir out tv? ho intohod in. *' I sav, follows, is this Fairfax's stono? Ugh — uh ! lloro 1 ami" ** Fairfax's stone !" said Peter, getting it out as his breath would allow. " Fairtax wouldn't have climbed this hill for all the six millions and a half acres of his inheritance. I take it he was a man of too much sense. Heavens — but Fm nearly gone! How tar are wo tVom tho horses. Powell .'" *' About two miles, I take it. Its about two miles, Conaway, up to here i Yes — so I thought." **Come, move on, men. There must be no muti- nous oonvorsation indulged in. Peter's tor a revolt again. 1 see," said the Signer. Peter was now rested, and he resented tho impu- tation with many valorous words. *' Xo. gentlemen, no such tritle as this wilderness shall prevent me trom tishing in the Plaokwater I It isn't more than two or three miles oli\ Powoll. is it! And down hill, vou sav, from hereT' '• Wo are over the worst of it uinv, ^fr. Putout.'' Siiid Powell. ** Move on men — move on men," said Peter, THK \fAl'J:jJ INTO THK CANAA.V. 1 OCi *'bijt don't go too faat — I'rn afraid Afr. Todd can't keep Tip with us." **Ugh — ah! Never mind me, I can get along with any of yon." And here Trip pitched over a rock and disappeared fhis game leg la«t; into a thicket, langhing onthiHu^k — uh / and pre^iently he came intr>-line again, aa if nothing had occurred more than he looked for. The wilderness was growing wilder. We had, some time Bince, IffHt all trace of anything like even a deer-path. Still, pleasantly, and in fine apiritg, we pnrsned onr way. Now we had to climb some Bteep hill-side, clinging to the nndergrowth to pnll onrselves np, and now we wonld come up again.st a barrier of fallen trees — some of them gix feet high as they lay along the gronnd, and coated with rno^.s half a foot thick — some so decomposed that they recreated themselves in the yonng hemlocks and firs that grew np out of thern — some more recently fallen, with great monnds of earfh and stone heaved np with their roots; these monnds sometimes cov- ered over by other trees thrown across them, and thus affording shelter to the wild animals from the snows and storms of winter. Over all these we wonld climb and roll ourselves across; and some- times, such obstruction did they present to onr course, we would be obliged to make a detour ronnd for the length of a qnarter of a mile may be, and find ourselves only advanced a hundred pacea 110 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. on the straight line of our route. It was thus we went along — up-hill and clown — now along the side of a rib of the mountain — now over its cone, and now along it — down through deep ravines and up out of them, and scarcely able at any time to see further ahead than some twenty yards, so thick were the leaves about us ; and not often able to catch a glimpse of the sun, so dense was the mass of foliage uinbrellaed out everywhere above us. Still there was a great wild delight in it all ; and by this time we had become somewhat inured to the work ; we were beginning to improve in con- dition, and we felt our sinews and muscles coming into better play every step we took. After awhile, thus pursuing our steady advance, we came to a small rivulet, trickling its way down a shallow ravine, and evidently making its course to the west. This was a little rill that sent forth its mite, high up in these loftiest regions, to form tlie waters of the Cheat river ; the Cheat falling into the Monongahela — the Monongahela into the Ohio ■ — the Ohio into the Mississippi — and so to the great Atlantic reservoir. It was clear, now, that we were on the other side of the Backbone. "This water, gentlemen," said Powell, "is ma- kino: for the Blackwater. We are across the Bone." " How far now, Powell, before we reach the falls ?" asked Peter. "Well, I reckon about four miles — maybe." THE MAKCH INTO THE CANAAN. Ill '' Four miles ! It can't be. It's no such thing. Why, Mr. Powell, didn't you say distinctly, that it was but four miles altogether from the place we left the horses." "Oh, no — I didn't say that! I told you, we could bring the horses along to within about four miles of the falls — over to another glade, which we will come to before long." " I'm deceived, gentlemen. "VYe have all been deceived by these men. Conway is this the case that Powell says ?" " Powell knows the country better than I do. He's nearly right, I guess. I should suppose now, we are about four miles away." " Gentlemen, hold on — stop," said Peter, "I've a proposition to make." " You had better not be left behind," said the Signor, "you might get lost out here. Keep up with the line." On we went, increasing our pace a little, for the day was hying westward ; and if we intended to reach the Blackwater by nightfall, there was no time to waste. " This is intolerable !" said Peter. " It's all non- sense — not a particle of sense it. I say — hold on, I've a proposition to make." " I don't think we are treating him right," said the Doctor, a little tired himself. " It isn't fair — he 112 THE BLACKWATER CHR0NICL1|. might be suffering. We ought to halt, and hear what he has to say." As Peter's voice was strong — altogether unim- paired, there was a rather general impression that there was a good deal of" good walking in him yet. But we halted and threw ourselves down upon the moss. "What's the proposition? Let's have it while we are resting — for there's no time to lose." " Well, gentlemen, its strikes me we ought to encamp." This was met with a general dissent. "It's my opinion we are lost," continued Peter, " decidedly lost. These men have deceived us. They start out by telling us that its only four miles from where we left our horses to the Blackw^ater. Well, we left them at one o'clock, and it's now five by my watch. We've been four hours in coming here — and Pm nearly dead at that! l^ow they tell us they've got yet more than four miles to go ! I don't believe they know themselves where we are. I believe we are lost, and that we are walking about here for nothing. Powell, tell me, didn't you say just now that this little rivulet was one of the sources of the Black water ?" "Yes — and I think so still, Mr. Butcut." " Only think so ! There it is, gentlemen. He don't know where he is. I don't believe we are near the Blackwater." THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 113 " I^or I either," said Triptolemus, who grew un- easy at the idea of being lost — remembering the story of the lost man, and the bones that were found out here. "If I could have seen Fairfax's stone, I might have had some confidence. How can this little stream make the Blackwater, when it's as white and clear as any water we have seen ?" " Yes, Murad's got it ! How can it be, Powell ?" " Well, gentlemen, it's no use talking. I am in the right direction. Don't you say so, Conaway?" ■ " Yes, I do." " Well, that's all," continued Powell, a little miffed for the moment, " that I can do for you. There a'n't any finger boards out here to point out the way. All I can do for you is, to take a general direction right, and I know I must hit the Blackwater some- where — a mile or two higher up, or lower down." "But we've been four hours getting here, and have come but four miles, you think ; and have four more to go, you say !" " Well, no man need expect to see the falls of the Blackwater without some sharp walking. A mile or a mile and a half an hour, in a straight line — which would make two or three, twisting about as we have to go — ^is about as much as we can make out here. I could have brought you a straighter course — down through the big laurel, you know, Conaway — but if ever you once got into that, we know you would, be glad enough to be out again! 114 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. — and so we have been trying to head the laurel as much as possible." ''Eight, men' — you are right," said the Signor. " I am not so entirely certain," resj)onded Adol- phus, " but we must abide our fate now." "Right— all right." " I withdraw what I said, men," observed Peter, it just occurring to him that if the guides should take it into their heads to leave us, we would be in rather a bad way. "I was very much heated just now, and a good deal blown — that's the truth ; and the mind, you know, Powell, will take the hue and tone of the feelings. This little rest has put it all right, though." " Handsomely done, and philosophically account- ed for." "Move on, Powell — it's all right!'.' The Signor waved his frying-pan encouragingly, and the Master blew away upon his hand-bugle. With restored spirit, the expedition once more dashed along through the forest. Up started three or four deer from the bushes, and, showing the un- derside white of their tails as they threw them over their backs, with a leap and a bound they were lost in the forest. Murad ran after them a little way out of the line, and pitching down presently over some rough ground, his lame leg up in the air, he laughed out his "Ugh — uh !" and gave up the chase, saying, as he fell into line again — THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 115 ^' Thej are monstrous swift. How the fury they get over the rough ground so fast, I can't see !" "They were born so," replied old Conway. " It's a gift to them," said Powell " Every ani- mal has his gift. It's their protection. The bear climbs, and the deer runs." The hunters discoursing their lore of the forest, w^e came down to the edge of some swampy ground, and found ourselves in front of a wide stretch of laurel, tangled and thick everywhere around. To -cross it — as it was clear it could not be avoided in any way — the hunters looked about for the best place to go in. At length, finding a spot that bid the fairest, they made their way into the brake, and desperately after them we all followed, as best we could. Such pulling and tugging — such twisting, plunging, breaking, crashing, and tearing— "I never remember ever to have heard" or seen. Here was one held fast by his wallet, and twisting about like an eel to get himself loose ; thei-e another who had got upon a huge fallen tree — thus avoiding the laurel by walking along its surface as far as it reached through the swamp ; but it was so decomposed, that presently he sank into it up to his arms — and he wvas stuck. Here another who had reached a stream, walking in it as far as in its wind- ings it kept a course that corresponded with our direction. There one grown entirely desperate, and 116 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. endeavoring to break his way through by main strength. The hnnters took it more knowingly, and would search about for the thinnest places — some- times going back upon their tracks when they would get into a very thick part of the brake, and trying it another way. H^'^l^jf} To tell how at last we all did get out, overtaxes any powers of description that I possess. Peter suc- ceeded eventually, and threw himself down on the ground entirely exhausted, murmuring something about the other side of Jordan, and the laurel be- ing « hard road to travel. The Prior came ashore with his big knife open in his hand, having at length, — like Wit in Moore's song — ^^ cut his bright way through." How Triptolemus got through has never THE MAECH INTO THE CANAAN. 117 yet been fairly ascertained ; but it is believed by the whole expedition that he fell through the most of the way — for whenever we had any glimpse of him, his head was down and his feet up. Somehow or other the passage was successfully accomplished ; and, after resting sufficiently, we took up the line of nrarch, with a unanimous request of the guides that they would avoid all the laurel that it was possible, by any skill of their woodcraft, to get round. " And this is the beautiful rhododendron, Adol- phus, that you and I have been trying so hard to grow," said the Master. " I'll pull it all up as soon as I get home," replied Galen spitefully — "if, indeed, I shall ever see that blessed spot again." " No — I'll now have a thicket of it at the Priory, if it is only that I may be able to demonstrate, when I grow old, the miracles I shall recount of this ex- pedition." "A good idea," said the artist. "I'll make a grand national painting of it, and call it ' The Pas- sage of the Laurel.' " " And hang it up by Leutze's ' Passage of the Delaware.' " " Couldn't you put Fairfax's stone somewhere in the picture?" inquired Trip. " Oh, certainly," returned the Signor, " and draw you, Trip, pitching into it!" 118 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. " Have Butcut stuck up to his shoulders in a de- composed hemlock, and a bear after him !" " A rattlesnake, too !" " A panther or so !" "And some owls about!" "I'll try and do the subject justice, gentlemen," replied the Signor. " ]^o historical feature shall be left out." Thus commenting on the passage of the laurel, we moved on ; and after a while, descending a long hillside, we came to the head of a glade, through which a stream of some size ran — its waters of a light-chocolate hue. We were very much jaded by this time ; and so we threw ourselves down upon the soft, beautiful grass, knee-high everywhere around, and for half an hour enjoyed such grateful rest as seldom comes to the sons and daughters of men who stay in civilized regions ; it recompensed even the laurel, so exquisite was the rest, and so gorgeous the bower where we took it ! •' And then he said, ' How sweet it were A fisher or a hunter here, A gardener in the shade, Still wand'ring with an easy mind To build a household fire, and find A home in every glade ! " • What days and what sweet years! — Ah me! Our life were life indeed, with thee So passed in quiet bliss, And all the while,' said he, ' to know That we were in a world of wo, On such an earth as this !' THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 119 "And then he sometimes interwove Fond thoughts about a father's love : 'For there,' said he, 'are spun Around the heart such tender ties. That our own children to our eyes Are dearer than the sun. " 'Sweet Ruth ! and could you go with me, My helpmate in the woods to be, Our camp at night to rear — Or run, my own adopted bride, A sylvan huntress at my side. And drive the flying deer!' "'Beloved Ruth!'" Such thoughts filled the teeming brain of the Prior, as he lay half sleeping in the beautiful glade. — But we can not follow him in his dreams of wild bliss ; for we must go into another chapter, and bivouac for the night. 120 THE BLAOKWATER CHRONICLE. CHAPTEE IX. THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. While yet the sun in liis westward journey had but about an hour to go, before he left the Canaan to darkness and the expedition — not to mention the bears and owls, &c.,. about — a snake stole into our bower, and disturbed the heavenly repose of the glade. A very harmless, inoffensive little grass- snake — polished and slippery, disturbed by the rolling about of some one of the party, wound itself along swiftly over one of the extended arms of Doctor Blandy, as he lay sprawled out upon his back — gazing up into the heavens, and dreaming dreams of the balmy summer's eve. Galen sprang to his feet, and jumped some ten paces off into the meadow. Whereupon we all did the same. It was a rattlesnake at least to our startled imagination ! — until we saw, to our shame, that it was not. Being on our feet, however, the word was given to take up the line of march again — and off we went: the guides being of opinion, that by crossing the ridge before us, we would come upon the Blackwater by night. THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 121 We made our way ont of the glade, encountering but a small strip of laurel ; and once more filed into the dense wild forest. As we advanced we grew more and more silent. We were evidently beginning to flag in spirit. It was our first day, and we were not yet inured to the toil. Every now and then some startled deer would give a little life to the party — but it would not last, and we trudged along almost noiseless over the mossy ground. Instead of the country's giving indication of our being near a stream such as the Blackwater, it was growing more hilly and broken ever since we left tlie glade. The shades of evening too, were fast closing in upon us. Something was wrong — we ought certainly to have reached the Blackwater before this. The hunters were evidently in doubt about their course, and tliey now held frequent con- s iltations with each other. They had told us before we set ofiF fnjin the dale of the Potomac, that they would certainly take us to our destination by night, and tliey were anxious to accomplish their purpose ; they feared their skill as guides would be called in question if they failed in what tiiey had been so certain of accomplishing. It was now near sun- down, and we were hemmed in, on all sides, by mountains. The impression that we were really lost was uppermost in the minds of all of us; and presently we held a general council — the result of which was, that if we did not come to some indica- 6 122 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. tion of the Blackwater, when we crossed the next ridge, we would encamp for the night. Crossing over this ridge, everything looked as before. It was all the same ragged, dense, dark, deep, grand gloom of mountainous forest that we had left behind us — no appearance of laurel — the sure harbinger of water ; no such sloping down of the hills anywhere, as looked like the descent into a valley, such as a stream of any size would find its way through ; and above all, listen as intently as we might, no sound of a waterfall (such as we were assured would greet our ears from the river we sought) was mingled with the song of the evening wind. Therefore there was but one voice in the gen- eral assembly of the expedition — and that was to halt for the night, and take counsel of to-morrow's sun as to our direction. Finding a little trickling rill in the bed of a rugged ravine close at hand, we resolved upon taking up our abode b}^ its waters for the night. Accordingly the most appropriate spot we could find was selected ; and, throwing down our burdens in a pile, we commenced the construction of a camp, with a great deal of busy bustle. As the reader unacquainted with the ways of a wilderness life, may take some interest in knowing how this was done, we will enter, for his benefit, into the particulars. In the first place, then, the hunters set to work and gathered together a number of dried logs and THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 123 limbs of trees, that they found scattered about the forest, making a j^ile some ten or twelve feet long, and three or four feet high. They then picked out the driest bark and branches of jMne they could find, and laid them about through the pile. Kext tliey raised some fire by striking sparks from the flints of tlieir rifles into tow, and carefully applying this to the pine bark and other combustible wood they had gathered ; it was not long before we had our wood-pile in a blaze—which was soon in- creased into a spreading and swelling flame, by the young hemlocks and fir trees that we were busily engaged for some time in cutting down and throw- ing upon the pile. While a part of the force were engaged in this work, others were busy in arranging the camp. The ground was cleared away in front of the fire, and this place was covered over with the softest branches of hemlock that we could gather— two of the party being out cutting for the purpose. A large log was brought and laid along the back of the camp, and this was covered over to the height of t\yo or three feet with hemlock and fir brancires, serving as a sort of wall to protect us from any intrusion from that side, of beasts, or what not, that might be disposed to invade us during the night. The camp was so arranged, that when we slept, mir heads would be against this barrier, and our feet to the fire. The sides also were filled up between the 124 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. trees with branches. Wlien it was all completed, we had a tenement — a lodge in the wilderness — the ground floor of which was hemlock branches a foot deep, three sides, also, hemlock and fir, and the fourth side a wood-pile, twelve feet long, four feet high, and all afire. And the roof above us : — " 'Tis the blue vault of heaven, with its crescent so pale, And all its bright spangles — quoth Allen-a-Dale !" and where will you find a grander in a king's palace. Our rifles, bags of provisions, cofi'ee-pot, tin-cups, and frjing-pan — all we had, were safely deposited in one corner of the lodge. The wallets were un- rolled, and the blankets, great coats, &c., &c. — including the knives and pistols, were thrown out for use. Having cut down as many small trees as would serve to keep the fire going for the night, we now assembled in the camp, and commenced prep- arations for supper, for which we were by this time about as ravenous as the beasts of a menagerie about feeding time. The bread, biscuits, and cold ham, were brought forth. Tlie sugar was untied. Conway sat about preparing the cofi'ee : Powell started the frying-pan on the hot embers, and soon had it hissing and crackling with the slices of fat middling of bacon with which he filled it ; until at length the more delicate aroma of the hemlock was lost to our noses, in the ascendency of the bacon-side. Those of us who were not engaged in these en- ticing preparations, were lying about on the hem- THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 125 lock, enjoying ourselves in the abandonment of forest undress — that is, in our stocking feet, with ungirded vest, unsuspendered ; and spread out around, in all the various attitudes that it was pos- sible for a set of tired men to stretch themselves in. At length the supper was announced as ready — and then it was devoured. To say that it was merely eaten up, would be a preposterous defama- tion of any ideas of eating, such as the word gen- erally conveys in civilized life. In an exceeding short space of time, of all the liberal preparation, there were, at all events, no visible evidences re- maining — except the table-service — the tin and the iron. It was as if a set of jugglers had suddenly juggled it out of sight — caused it all to evanish. It convinced my mind more thoroughly than any- thing I have witnessed in my somewhat varied life — that man is, by nature, a wild beast. Reduce him into his original elements — take off all this varnish, this overlarding of civilization — jDut him out in the Canaan here for about a month, and what beast is there of the wild that will out-raven him ! Poetry, philosophy, arts, and science — these have humanized him ; and made him, even when he is most starved, w^ave his hand to his friend, and with a smile upon his countenance, say. Take the first grah^ as did the famished Signor to the rapa- cious Butcut — which made the yet unsatisfied Blandy hand over the last slice of the niiddling to 126 THE BLACKWATEK CHEONICLE. lame Triptolemiis, and belie himself, when he said, Take that^ Trip^ Fm not a-hungry. The reader will perceive, from this, that the wilderness had not yet made us altogether savage ; also he will perceive though, that its tendency is toward the dehumanization of man — the resolving him into his original simple element of wild beast. I would take advantage of this occasion — all the great historians do so — to philosophize a little upon the absolute necessity there is for good government over mankind — that there should be good laws, and firmly maintained — how stability and order, and the social decorums, that make nations refined and great, and keep them so, are thereby only up- held : how otherwise, man will soon convert the garden-spots of the world into a bear-walk. These high corollaries I would deduce from our experience of the wilderness, and go to the trouble of showing them convincingly, with reasons manifold, were it not, that just at this time there is a practical teach- ing of them everywhere over the land, that is making the lesson manifest to the dullest mind — and which practical teaching, if not arrested, will soon convert the garden of our American civilization into such a bear-walk as the world has not yet seen. Be these things, however, as they may — let the republic tremble to its foundations, if it must — let political and social anarchy take it, if it has to be 80 — there are those about who will right it, and THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 127 rear its firm liead liiglier, and higher yet, to the skies. In the meantime, when the hurly-burly comes, we of this expedition have made up our minds to seize upon the Canaan; and with the knowledge we have acquired of its fastnesses — such as the laurel : — its gorges, narrow defiles, rocky precipices, and torrent passes — all its mili- tary availabilities — it will go hard with us if we don't hold it against all the other freebooters of the United States — let their name be leo-ion ! However, upon this point we must keep our counsel, or we might be frustrated in our enterprise by the rapine of the times. A wise ma?i is his own lantern. In the meantime, the supper was gone — juggled, or jugged away; and the animals to all appear- ances appeased. We now gathered into the inner penetralia of our hold; and stowed ourselves away in every violation of the rules of ceremony known to any of the nations of Christendom, or of the heathen — smoking cigars or pipes — telling stories, and singing songs, of love, war, romance, the chase, intermixed with our national anthems, and local ballads, pathetic or humorous, now in the harmony of Germany or of Italy, of France or old romantic Spain, and now to the strains of some low, dulcet, African refrain. Thus were passed the first watches of the night, until, at length, tired nature yielded to the omnipotence of sleep ; and, hushed by the night 128 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. winds murmuring among the immemorial trees, while the blazing pile at our feet illumined the forest around and above us with its silver and I s golden flame, imparting a magic sheen to the leaves and branches of the woods, until it all seemed the lighted tracery of some vast Gothic minster of the V THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 129 Avild ; and with nothing above ns bnt tlie vault of heaven, studded with its glittering stars (which we couldn't see) — and nothing beneath us but the spicy smelling hemlock — and nothing over us but a blanket — we fell asleep, as sweetly and confi- dingly here in' the wild, as children beneath the roof-tree of some guardian home. And so, tired reader, good night! May your sleep be ever as safe in the city, and your dreams never woi'se than those that haunted the hemlock of our lost expedition. 6* r' 130 THE BLACKWATEK CnRONICLE. CHAPTER X. THE BLACKWATER FOUND A GREAT NUMBER OF TROUT TAKEN MR. BUTCUT FRIES SOME FISH. About daybreak, when our sleep was at tlie high- est, and the atmosphere the most chilly — the twilight just emerging from the night — Doctor Adolphus Blandy awoke from his dreams. Sleep- ing next to Mr. Butcut — and that gentleman, taking good care of himself even in his sleep, having con- trived to appropriate to himself, during the night, the blanket that warmed the shoulders of Adolphus — the doctor woke up at this hour yawning and chilled. Contemplating for a while, the comforta- ble party around him, and particularly contempla- ting the exceedingly comfortable Butcot, jnst at this time emitting the longest drawn and most swel- ling notes of his horn ; and also reflecting, some- what bitterly may be, that all this was doubly enjoyed by But, at the expense of liis own shiver- ing discomfort — himself sacrificed to this too com- plete bodily satisfaction of the partner of his sleep —and accustomed, no doubt, himself to his own THE BLACKWATEK FOUND. 131 proper share of nocturnal indulgence : thus contem- plating the repose around him, the devil of that dog-in-the-manger quality of our nature, that will sometimes get uppermost in the breasts of the best of men, arose and took possession of his soul. '' Aha, Mr. But !" said Galen to himself, " 3^ou look mighty comfortable, indeed, with every bit of my blanket wrapped about you — tucked in, too! No wonder I couldn't pull it over me. I'll fix you, Mr. Snug, for this,.! think. If I'm shivering here, you sha'n't sleep so comfortably there, and in my blanket, too — confound you !" So lie deliberately arose, and set fire to the hem- lock upon which we were sleeping, starting the flame at a point nearest to the object of his particu- lar malice. Having got his blaze under wa}^, he next picked up a hatchet, and finding a young fir- tree so placed tliat w^hen cut down it would fall with all its branches directly upon the sleepers, he went to work to fell it, a great deal of especial de- light beaming all the while from his eyes. The hemlock being of the Pinus species, fire takes hold of it rapidly, and soon the camp was in a blaze. The flames spreading in close proximity around Peter, crackling upon his ear, and flaring in his eye, he awoke in great terror, and aroused the camp with his outcries. Just at this critical mo ment, down came the doctor's young fir-tree, tli:it he had been all the while industriously hackinii* at, 132 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. down right over the camp, with all its sweeping branches, trapping the party. Of course, there was no little commotion among iis. The fire was in- stantly put out, however, by a sort of instinct of preservation common to mankind ; and not yet fairly awake, and a general impression prevailing in the confusion that we were attacked by the wild animals, we seized upon the rifles, hatchets, knives, frying-pan, and but-ends of the burned wood-pile, to sell our lives as dearly as possible. Missing Blandy, however, who had concealed himself be- hind a tree, the reality of the case began to break upon us ; and fairly now awake, we commented variously upon the caricature alacrity that had been exhibited by the expedition in defending itself from the supposed assault of the beasts of the wilderness — and took advantage of the occasion to get break- fast, and make an early start for the day. The breakfast was a repetition of the last night's supper, which being said — it is enough. Present- ly the sun reddened the eastern sky, and the hunt- ers getting the direction they proposed to try their fortune in, we set off through the yet dank and dewy forest. Our way was broken and rugged, up and down, through ravines that were deep chasms, and over great fallen trees covered with moss and wet as a sponge. Deer we saw frequent- ly browsing about, and out here where perhaps they had never seen a human being before, they would THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 133 lift lip their heads and for a while gaze at us as if in wonder at what it all meant. Once or twice it was proposed to shoot one of them, but this was cried down as an act of wantonness, since we were already burdened with as much as we could cany ; and, uncertain as to our being at all in the right di- rection, we were somewhat anxious and desirous to hasten on our way, while yet fresh from the night's rest. There was one part of the wiklerness which we traversed this morning, where we came frequently upon the traces of bear. Sometimes we would come upon the trunk of a dead tree, some hundred feet long, and five or six feet in diameter, scattered and raked about in all directions by the bears to get at the worms to eat. Sometimes we would find a cluster of trees, with the bark worn smooth, which the hunters told us was a certain indication that a family of these animals had been liere raised, and were no doubt now in some hollow tree or fast- ness not far ofi". Thus we walked along for several hours, proba- bly at no greater rate than a mile an hour, and in some evident disheartenment— for we were not at all so light of spirit as we might have been, and would, had we felt more certain of our course. Every now and then when we stopped to rest, tlie conversation would take a debating turn, the sub- ject discussed being generally the points of the 134 THE BLACK WATER CHRONICLE. compass ; one asserting that here was the north, and another that it was in the very opposite direc- tion. Peter's mind was always opposed to the hunters' ; if they pointed this way for north, he was sure to point in the opposite, and maintain his point of the compass with much vehement speech ; for he was by this time fully assured that the hunt- ers had no knowledge of the country — in fact knew nothing of wood-craft at all. These debates were generally wound up by some very direct re- mark of Triptolemus's, proclaiming it as his opinion, that the hunters didn't know any more than he did, where we were — when some one of the more dis- creet members of the party would have to intimate to Powell and Conway, that Trip didn't mean as much as he said, for fear they might possibly lose their good temper, and leave the whole expedition in the lurch, by deserting us upon the first favorable opportunity : in which event it is altogether likely we would have remained out in the Canaan long enough to have resolved ourselves into our original wild elements, or to have become a pile of bones. But Powell and Conway were good-tempered men, and set down to the proper account all our insinu- ations against their knowledge ; and generally retired to a little distance, and held some rational parley with each other upon the matter in doubt. At length we scrambled up a desperate hill, and seating ourselves down to rest on its brow, we THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 135 heard Peter's voice back in the bushes, crying out that he couldn't stand it any longer. Presently he came in, out of breath, dragging himself along ; and sitting down on a log with an air of dogged resolution, great misery in his countenance, he swore he would go no further. " Gentlemen, there must be an end put to this. I can't stand it. It's all intolerable — terrific !" " Let him stay here, then," said the Signor. " We'll go on, and find the falls. We can then send one of the men back for him." The enterprise was growing desperate, so we moved along, determined to find water at all haz- ards, if we fell in our tracks. As we took up the march again, each man gave Peter a parting volley. "You had better struggle on. But, as long as you can. If you should be left here, you will never find the w^ay in yourself." " And bear it in mind, an expedition fitted out for y*»ur recovery might not be more fortunate than those to the North Pole." "And, But, there is a possibility that govern- ment mightn't think you worth discovering." " Mr. Grinnell couldn't be calculated on for you, Peter." " And if ever you are found, you might be a pile of bones — remember the lost man !" said Trip. "Farewell, Peter! I'm sorry to leave you, old fellow." 136 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. " Go to ," said Peter, " with your blasted nonsense. Since yon wont stop and encamp, I'll show you I can walk with any of you." And Peter got up and followed after, not liking the idea of remaining by himself in the forest ; and thinking rightly it would be rather hazardous to be left behind by the party. About an hour after this we were walking along the broad top of a ridge, when one of the hunters stopped, and thought he heard something like the distant sound of water. Peanimated by the thought we pricked up our ears, and went on in better heart. But Botecote, who was really suffering a good deal, now came to a dead halt, and refused to move. No persuasion this time, nor any banter — no argument addressed to his hopes, nor any intimidation of any sort, that the inventive genius of the expedition could suggest — was of the least avail. The case this time was desperate ; and we held a council of war over him, the chief question being what was to be done with his body. He was too big to carry — which was the suggestion of Triptolemus — so, of course, that thought was dismissed ; and, besides, we had no idea of doing it : for we had still a lurk- ing belief that he was playing 'possum a little, in order that he might accomplish an encampment. Fortunately, however, and saving us from tlie des- perate measure of leaving him here in the forest, with a chance that we should not be able to find THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 137 liim again, old Conway had explored the side of the mountain, and just now returned, saying that he had come to a wide belt of laurel, and that it was his opinion the Blackwater ran through it. "I knew it," said Peter. "It's just as I said, gentlemen. We've been enduring all this horrible walking all the morning, when, by going more to the left, we might have been in tlie Blackwater long ago. "Walked to death for nothing!" And now it was suggested that the laurel should be explored, the fact of the water ascertained, and Peter put into it, to make his way to the falls down the middle of the stream. This proposition was as- sented to, as the best the case admitted of. Ac- cordingly, going down to the edge of the laurel, and seeing Peter safely deposited in the brake — with some appropriate encouragement of him as he fought his way through — and hearing presently his somewhat cheerful shout, announcing his safe arri- val in the stream — we made our way back again to the top of the mountain — Powell being certain now that we were on the Blackwater, and that in the course of a mile or so we would come upon some of its falls. Indeed, we were now convinced that we heard the sound of them in the distance. We pursued our march along the cone of the ridge we were on for something better than a mile, when, coming to a halt, we distinctly heard a water- fall below us. There was no doubt about it now : 138 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. and we descended the mountain- side with a shout. We met the laurel about half-way down the mount- ain — and breaking into it, after the necessary fight- ing, we filed down, one by one, along a great fir- tree that had, happily for us, fallen there some ten or twenty years before, and stepped out into the Blackwater, on a broad surface of rock — the very top itself of the falls we w^ere seeking. In a few minutes we fixed up our fishing-lines, and, dotted along the edge of the fall which was about ten feet high, middle of the day as it was when the fish generally cease to bite, we took from the pool be- low some sixty trout, as fast as we could bait our hooks for them. Satisfied with this taste of the stream, and assured of our hopes of trout innumera- ble, we descended the falls, and looked about for a suitable spot to construct a camp, and prepare our dinner — for which, by this time, we were in no little need, having eaten nothing since the early twilight. In the meantime, Mr. Butcut and Conway — fish- ing down the middle of the stream, and having caught some thirty or forty more trout as they came along — arrived at the falls, and thus the party were once more together — boastful over all our toil and sufi'ering, and in high and happy spirits at the suc- cessful achievement of the enterprise out. In the course of an hour a camp was constructed by the banks of the stream, about a hundred yards THE BLACK WATER FOUND. 139 below the falls. A great blazing fire, such as we had the night before, was soon under way ; and la- zily stretched about on the hemlock, or out upon the large, moss-covered rocks that bordered the stream — now frying and eating a pan of trout at returning intervals, as a not quite sated appetite prompted, or taking a little sleep, as nature inclined — we passed the hours until about four o'clock, when it was deemed advisable to sally forth for the purpose of laying in provision for our supper and the next morning's breakfast. Leaving some of the party to perfect the works at the camp, and make everything as comfortable as possible for the night, we divided the rest into two bands, and set out — one up the stream, the other down — to make a somewhat extensive foray upon the trout. We will not give a minute account of the eve- ning's fishing. We will state generally that the in- road was very successful ; that we took the trout as fast as we could bait for them ; that in a walk of about a mile up the stream, and two miles down, and back, we at length arrived in camp with about as many fish as we could \vell carry — and were back all of us about an hour before dark, and all rather indiflferent about taking any more trout that evening. Immediately in front of the camp, and about a step out in the stream, is a large rock, in shape a 14:0 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. parallelogram, of some five feet by ten, rising above the water about three feet, and of almost an entirely flat surface, except where at one end it is scooped into a slight hollow, that will hold some two or three buckets of water. This rock we have appropriated as our kitchen ; and upon it we have counted out some five hundred trout, varying in size from six to ten inches — some of them, the black trout, with deep red spots — and some salmon-colored, with lighter red spots — all of them very beautiful, though not, of course, of the largest size of the fish ; for we have yet to go down below the great falls of the Black water to get at them. All hands are now called into requisition to clean all these fish ; and it is not long before the whole five hundred are prepared for the pan, and safely put away in the hollow basin at the other end of the kitchen, with a plenty of good fresh w^ater around them. By the side of this rock, called the kitchen, a lit- tle farther out in the stream — an easy step taking you from the top of the kitchen-rock to it — is an- other large sandstone rock, which is our parlor. This last is about ten feet by twelve, and about three feet also above the water, and perfectly flat and smooth on its surface. Describing thus our difl'er- ent apartments — all, like the statues of the heathen goddesses in the " Groves of Blarney," standing out "naked in the open air" — perhaps it would aflord THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 141 the reader some satisfaction to know our manner of nsing them. It is very simple ; as thus : — You will have the goodness to observe the move- ments of Mr. Butcut at this moment. Tliis gentle- man has a turn for good living, and consequently lie is "sometliing of an amateur cook. Indeed, it is his pleasure so to indulge his genius this way, that after he has himself eaten as much as he wants for the time being, he takes great delight in exercising his talents for the gratification of others. He is now about to cook a mess for the Prior, who, com- ing in the last from fishing, has now made himself ready to enjoy his supper, having a very fine rage upon him at present, and a particularly good capa- city at all times to go upon. Butcut takes up tlie frying pan, and repairs with it to the kitchen. Pla- cing it down by the fish, he selects from the clean and beautiful hundreds in the basin about eight fine fish — half of them black, half of them salmon-col- ored, all of them of the largest and fattest — these being just as many as the bottom of the frying-pan will properly hold. He takes them carefully, even daintily, by the tail, between his fore-finger and thumb, and places them accurately in the pan in alternate heads and tails. A little salt and a little black pepper are carefully sprinkled over them. He next cuts a few thin slices of middling of bacon and places them about in the pan. He is now ready for the fire. So he goes to the great blazing pile, and 142 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. raking out from underneath it, away from any smoke, a quantity of the livest embers, he sets the frying-pan evenly on these, and soon has the whole delicate mess frying away in the most delightful manner — the fat of the middling crackling and his- sing a most delicious music to his ear — also to the ear of the expectant Master. The accomplished Peter takes great care that the fish shall not burn in the least, so he removes the pan from the hot embers every once in a while. Cooked sufficiently now, as he supposes, on the one side, he proceeds to the operation of turning them. This he does after the manner of tossing a pancake. He spreads a white napkin upon the rock hard by, and giving the fry- THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 143 ing-pan a toss of a very artful character, up go the trout in the air, turning over and coming down into the pan again precisely as the arch-cook desires it : and all this is done without spilling even so much as a drop of grease on the napkin. He now goes to the fire again, and performs some more hocus-pocus, that is all Hebrew-Greek to the ignorant, until the mess ^is of a delicate brown hue — when he deems the operation complete, and hands the frying-pan to the Master with an air which seems to say, '' A dish fit to set before a king !" The sharp-set Prior, in the meantime, has pre- pared himself with a plate — of the real stone-ware — that is, a flat, thin stone, of some twelve inches' diameter, which he has selected from the bed of the stream for his purpose ; and emptying the trout up- on his plate, with a chunk of bread on one end of it and his big knife on the other, he hands the frying- pan to the next gentleman eagerly waiting for it, and proceeds from the fireplace to the kitchen, and from the kitchen to the parlor, where he sets him- self down, with his legs crossed under him after the fashion of the Grand Mufti, and, with his plate be- fore him, dips in, and makes away with the spoils of the Bla'ckwater, in what in elegant life would be considered a very short space of time, but which excites no comment at all out here — it being com- mon to all the men we have seen feed in the country. The trout is such light food, that eight of them, 144 THE BLA.CKWATER CHRONICLE. some ten inches long, will not make a supper for a hearty man, leading this wilderness life ; and ac- cordingly the Master asks for another plateful. But Mr. Butcut is by this time cooking another little mess for himself, his appetite getting up again on him : so the former gentleman has to wait for his turn at the frying-pan, and try liis hand for himself. But enough. This will suffice to show the habits of our indoor life out here on the Blackwater — and give also some very just idea of the different apart- ments of our dwelling, and of our felicitous manner of using them. THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 145 CHAPTER XI. THE BLACKWATER VILLA. Our Blackwater villa is placed in the most pic- turesque position imaginable — almost immediately upon the banks of the most lovely of all amber streams. It is protected on one side by masses of gray sandstone rock, dashed with spots of a darker and lighter hue of gray, and occasionally a tinge of red — these rocks coated over in places with moss of various mingled colors — gray, blue, green, yel- low, and purple, and soft and glossy as the richest velvet. A noble overshadowing fir-tree rises up from one corner of the villa, some hundred and fifty feet, to the skies. The laurel grows thick and matted back of it, in impenetrable masses ; and the glory of its flower, now just swelling into bloom, gives an air of elegance — even of splendor, to the embowered dwelling. In front, the pure cool stream leaps over the falls like a river of calf's-foot jelly with a spray of whipped syllabub on top of it, and tumbles wildly down through its rocky and ob- structed bed, filling your imagination with the 146 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. poetry of unpolluted mountain waters — running pure to your ideal, as the kingdom of heaven. The valley of the Blackwater is not more than a hundred yards wide, here where we have made our home ; and embowered on all sides, by mountains of noble forms and various, it wears an air of entire seclusion from the world we have deserted. No intruding footsteps of man, we instinctively feel, will here disturb our chosen, perfect solitude. All customs, manners, modes of life, that we have here- tofore known, are felt to be the remembrance of an almost forgotten dream. The earth is entirely new to our senses ; and it is all our own — an entire and absolutely perfect fee-simple estate of inheritance in land and water, the deed recorded in the most secret recesses of our own breasts. Therefore we feel an unbounded liberty of thought, speech, and action, and this is manifest in all we say and do ; and hence the reader will easily understand how it is, that there is such entire freedom of remark among us, one to another ; how it is that we lay about on the hemlock, now that night has set in upon us, in such careless luxuriance of attitude ; how that the Prior is now stretched out with his feet to the fire, and one of the hunters squatted down confidingly between them ; how the Signor goes on all fours over our bodies, in getting to a snug place in a corner of the camp, whither his fancy now urges him ; how that Mr. Butcut is flat upon his THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 147 back in the middle of the softest hemlock, his face direct to the heavens, and his body spread out as usual in his favorite position of a supple-jack distort- ed to the utmost; how Triptolemus's lame leg is thrown over one of old Conway's shoulders, with a view to the convenient drying of a wet stocking before the fire ; how it is that Adolphus, with a blanket sweeping his shoulders, half sits, half re- clines in among the roots of the great fir-tree, wishing he could smoke a mild Havana like the rest of us — but compensating his soul for his ina- bility, by indulging in visions of trout swimming about in all beautiful imaginary waters — the day- dream haunting the lights and shadows of his face, like an angel of Paradise. Lying about thus in all unrestrained felicity, we told stories, and discoursed much learning of the fisherman and the hunter, ancient and modern ; every now and then interweaving some very enter- taining and free — sometimes very slashing com- ment upon one another ; all of which we regret it is out of the question for us to impart to the reader, because of its too great freedom, even for this out- spoken age. Herein, therefore, that we may not fall below the dignity of history — having pitched our chronicle up to the very highest standard — we must exercise a becoming self-denial, hard as it is to refrain. The moon has now risen, and although a few 14:8 THE BLACKWATEE CHEONICLE. light fleecy clouds are gathering about here and there above us, yet the goddess of the night shines down as silvery soft upon the Canaan, as she did of old upon the garden. of Yerona, where Lorenzo and Jessica vied with each other in chanting her worship in such beautiful strains. And, oh ! most beautiful reader — now absorbing this inspired chapter, like Geraldine, when in lier night-robes loose, she lay reclined on couch of Ind, and poured over Surrey's captured line — how soothingly soft its influence upon us here in the w41d, you — you can never altogether know — not even from this rapt page ! — how all at once, as if at another Pros- pero's wand, our mood w^as changed from that of wanton, reckless mirth, and a gentle dreamy in- spiration, all poetry and romance (all the finer for our satisfaction in the res^ard of the trout — heav- enly fish !) — came with the balmy south wind, and took possession of our souls! You — even you, blissful girl, upon whom the favoring gods have bestowed the gift of genius, as well as of beauty — you, with your "finely-fibred frame," like Geor- giana's, duchess of Devonshire, whom Coleridge has so finely commemorated in his beautiful lines addressed to that lady — even you can not ever know this, unless, perchance, you would go with me, and live a sylvan huntress by my side in the Canaan, as did Ruth with her roving lover in the wilds of Georgia ! But God temper the wind to you. THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 149 shorn lamb, if you should ever trust yourself to my freebooter's faith !— unless, indeed, a latent Helen MacGreggor might be contained in your inches ! The moon and the soft south wind held us now completely enthralled in their divine ravishment ; and in this mood we grew musical — the Signor Andante at length tuning his voice to the beautiful serenade of Henry JSTeele : perhaps the most ex- quisite song that has yet been composed by any of our countrymen. It was thus Andante's voice, murmured a music sweeter than the Blackwater in our ears : — THE SERENADE. "Wake, ladj, wake — the midnight moon Sails through the cloudless skies of June : The stars gaze sweetly on the stream Which, in the brightness of their beam, One sheet of glorj lies. The glow-worm lends its little light, And all that's beautiful and bright Is shining on our world to-night, w Save thy bright eyes! "Wake, lady, wake — the nightingale Tells to the moon her love-lorn tale ! Now doth the brook that's hushed by day, As through the vale she winds her way In murmurs sweet rejoice ; The leaves by the soft night- wind stirrea. Are whispering many a gentle word. And all earth's sweetest sounds are heard Save thy sweet voice ! "Wake, lady, wake — thy lover waits, Thy steed stands saddled at the gates I 150 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. Here is a garment rich and rare, To wrap thee from the cold night air ; The appointed hour is flown — Danger and doubt have vanished quite — Our way before is clear and binght — And all is ready for the flight — Save thou alone! ""Wake, lady, wake — I have a wreath, Thy broad, fair brow shall rise beneath: I have a ring that must not shine On any finger, love, but thiiie ! I've kept my plighted vow. Beneath thy casement here I stand, To lead thee by thy own white hand. Far from this dull and captive strand — But where art thou ?" The last notes of the serenade died away upon tlie air; and not a sound disturbed the repose of the wilderness, save the murmur of the waters, and the whisperings of the trees. Each one of us, according to his gifts, was enjoying a little world of romance of his own — his soul lapped up in the creations of his gently-inspired brain — thinking not at all of the external world, but only of the ideal, conjured up by his teeming, beguiling fancy ; when all at once a sudden blow sprung up fitfully out of the stillness of the air, and threw the whole forest in commotion. The fire at our feet shot up a startling blaze, in among the branches of the piled-up fir and hemlock hitherto untouched, and the crackling flames, with their myriad spangles, rose high aloft in spiral curls, almost up to the overhanging bran- ches of the forest. Startled out of all the glory of THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 151 our visioned romance, we arose and looked out upon the night. Clouds were gathering like mustering bands everywhere in the heavens, and fast concen- trating their forces. The stars disappeared by squadrons from the just now blue and shining vault of heaven; and the fair goddess of the night, queen of the glittering realm— pale Dian, veiled her mild glories altogether from our eyes. Tlie southwest — harbinger of summer storms, is a swift and impetu- ous power in the air, and wonderfully does he bestir himself sometimes. So it was with him to-night ; for he sprang up suddenly upon us, without any warning, and vented himself, for some cause or other to us unknown, in outbursts of gusty bluster and passion, that made us think of a whole deluge of waters descending upon our devoted camp, drowning out our fires and drenching our very beds. But for the present there was more of bra- vado than performance in his high mightiness; and the storm blast blew by. Still darkness was every- where over the face of the earth, and the forest sent forth a low wail, and the waters murmured a sullen and monotonous song— falling upon the ear more like a heavy sea breaking lazily upon a flat shore, than the light, airy, wild, sportive, notes of the playful, impetuous, young streams of the moun- tains. Each man now wrapped himself around more closely in his blanket. ^ word was spoken, but 152 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. filled with the gloom of the night, we thought wist- fully of our pleasant homes — dry and snug, and of household security and comfort — books, lights, music, fruits, flowers, jocund children — that is those who had them — the sly flirtation by the light of the chandelier — " And mama, too, blind to discover The small white hand in mine" — — all that makes civilization tolerable ; and we out here, in the wilds of the Canaan, far away from the knowledge of men — to say nothing of women — perhaps lost — and to all reasonable certainty a night of wind and rain before us — bears, panthers, wolves, owls, around us, and may be not so far off as we might desire ! The melancholy soughing of the pines, too, above all the voices of the Canaan, had entered into our hearts, and awakened our supersti- tion, and no diversion of thought could dispossess our souls of its influence. The Master, indeed, seemed rather to encourage it ; for presently from out a dark corner, where half in the glimmer of the fire and half in the gloom of the hemlock he lay propped away in a very Ossianly state of mind, in a low, wild voice, all in harmony with the sough-, ing sound of the firs and the sullen murmur of the waters, he broke in upon the gloom of the camp, crooning the beautiful ballad of Rossmore. It was thus the mournful descant fell upon our ears — now THE BLACK WATER VILLA. 153 low as the lowest moan of the pines — now rising, now swelling, as the winds blew a louder wail : — ROSSMORE. "The day was declining, The dark night drew near; The old lord grew sadder, And paler with fear. ' Come hither, my daughter, Come nearer — oh, near! — It's the wind or the water Tliat sighs in my ear !' "Not the wind nor the water Now stirred the night air, But a warning far sadder — The banshee was there ! Now rising, now swelling, On the night wind it bore One cadence — still telling, 'I want thee, Rossmore I' "And then fast came his breath. And more fixed grew his eye : And the shadow of death Told his hour was nigh ! Ere the dawn of that morning The struggle was o'er. For when thrice canie the warnings A corpse was Rossmore !" "Hush your horrible croaking!" said AOIolphus, when the Master's voice had come to a stand-still. " Shut up, or I'll leave the room ! Isn't it all mis- erable enough already, but you must be keeping us from going to sleep with ballads about dying men, and such unearthly things?" " Let's put him out !" exclaimed Peter. 154 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. " Turn him out into the wilderness, and let him run with Ishmael and the other beasts !" " Pitch him into the Blackwater !" " And if there are any big falls below, let him go down them !" " Kill him ! — curse him — kill him !" " I have heard about such things, Mr. Philips," said Powell — " like that about Rossmore. Do you believe in them ?" " Oh, certainly, Powell." " I once saw a spirit," said old Conway. " With a long tail on him ?" asked Peter. " Well, I can't say but it had," continued the old man with eagerness. "Once — it was on a dark, black — the blackest sort of a night — about the end of one November — I was a-walking alone in the woods — and I came close upon a — " "Don't tell it — it was nothing but a bear or a wolf!" exclaimed Butcut. "I wish I was at home. What a fool I was for coming here!" — and Peter tried again to sleep. The sobbing and sighing wind still kept up its sad lament throughout the vale ; and Andante to its ac- companiment again tuned his voice, and half- spoke, half-sung the following strange old Scotch ballad : — THE TWA CORBIES. * "There were twa corbies sat on a tree, Large and black as black nnight be ; And one the other 'gan say, * Where shall we go and dine to-day ? THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 156 Shall we dine by the wild salt sea ? Shall we go dine 'neath the greenwood-tree V '"As I sat on the deep sea-sand, I saw a fair ship nigh at land : I waved my wings, I bent my beak — The ship sank, and I heard a shriek ! There they lie, one, two, and three — I shall dine by the wild salt sea.' " 'Come, I will show you a sweeter sight — A lonesome glen and a new-slain knight : His blood yet on the grass is hot. His sword half-drawn, his shafts unshot. And no one kens that he lies there, But his hawk, his hound, and his lady-fair ! " 'His hound is to the hunting gane, His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame. His lady's away with another mate, So we shall make our dinner sweet; Our dinner's sure, our feasting free — Come and dine by the greenwood-tree. " ' Ye shall sit on his white hause-bane, I will pick out his bonny blue e'en ; Ye'U take a tress of his yellow hair, To theak your nest when it grows bare ; The gowden down on his young chin Will do to sewe my young ones in. " ' Oh, cauld and bare will his bed be, "When winter storms sing in the tree ! At his head a turf, at his feet a stone — He will sleep, nor hear the maiden's moan: O'er his white bones the birds shall fly, The wild deer bound, and foxes cry !'" "This thing is getting intolerable!" exclaimed Galen. " It must be put an end to !" said But. 156 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. " Perhaps," observed Giiy, " you might prefer to hear the ballad of ' Harold the Grim.' That's a bal- lad, now, for such a night as this ! I think I could pitch it to the ' Infernal Waltz' in ' Robert the Devil.' Touch us the strain. Signer." Here the Signer let himself loose upon the waltz, and went on into the opera in general, joined at length by Mr. Butcut and our whole orchestra — Powell and Conway smoking their pipes all the while in utter amazement at the effect produced. This led to the performance of divers other pieces from the other operas, in executing which, " Harold the Grim," and the wail of the forest, and the sad murmur of the Blackwater, were all forgotten for the time. This spirited defiance of our condition did not last. It was but a temporary rising up ; and, tired out, we laid ourselves down upon the hemlock, and again gave way to the Ossianly influences of the forest. The owls by this time began to hoot about in alternate question and answer. " Whoo-whoo- whoo-whoo are you?" said one, and another an- swered with a hollow, short laugh — "Whoo-oo- 00-00 ! — whoo-oo-oo-oo !" Certain now that the owls were beginning to come about us — attracted, no doubt, by the cooking of the camp' — we expected, the next thing, to hear of the approach of the bears and panthers in our neighborhood. The smell of the bacon and grease of our kitchen would undoubt- THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 157 edly bring these gentlemen around us sometime in the night ; it might be, indeed, that our own meat would draw them : and in the event of its turning out a night of rain, why then our fire might be drenched out, and there would be nothing to keep the animals from coming in upon us. In the meantime, however, these thoughts natu- rally arising in the mind, Triptolemus lifted up his voice, and of his own accord — in a somewhat dis- cordant tone, in keeping with the rude character of the rhythm — chanted the ditty of BANGUM AND THE WILD-BOAR. " There is a wild-boar in the wood, Killum-coo, Con ! There is a wild-boar in the wood, He'll eat your meat and drink your blood — Cut him down ! Cut him down I " Bangum vowed that he would ride, Killum-eoo, Con ! Bangum vowed that he would ride, With sword and pistol by his side, Cut him down ! Cut him down ! "He tracked the wild-boar to his den, Killum-coo, Con ! He tracked the wild-boar to his den, And there he saw the bones of ten thousand men, Cut him down 1 Cut him down ! " They fought three hours by the day, Killum-coo, Con ! 158 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. They fought three hours by the day, Till at last the wild-boar — he ran away, Cut him down ! Cut him down !" This delightful ballad of " Bangiim and the Boar" Trip sang all to himself, for by this time we were about getting to sleep. "Whether this version is a correct one, Heaven only knows ! But we give it here as Trip sang it, and the probability therefore is that it is a good deal mixed up. Be this as it may, it is a very remarkable lyric, and worthy of being preserved in this chronicle as a specimen of our earlier and ruder song. About this time some drops of rain fell down heavily upon the leaves of the forest — premonitory of what was in store for us ; and in five minutes more, we, our camp, and everything around, were drenched. As it seemed to be a rather settled, steady pouring down of the clouds, without any wind or noise of any sort about it — and as there was no help for it, the hunters secured the fire as well as they could (covering it over partially with some pieces of hemlock-bark) ; when, rooting our- selves about among each other like a litter of pigs in a barnyard, we soon fell asleep, in defiance of the pitiless elements. THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 159 CHAPTEE XII. THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. Undisturbed by any of the wild beasts, we slept through the rain until broad daylight, when we crawled out of our litter, and started the nearly- extinguished fire. The rain had ceased to fall some- time in the night ; but the mist covered the mount- ains and enveloped the river ; the forest was every- where dripping wet, and for a while it was rather cheerless as we sat drooping before the slow fire. Soon, however, the flames took hold of the wood, and, as the blaze spread, our spirits revived. The worst possible thing for a man to do, under any circumstances, is to sit down and droop : the very best, all the philosophers agree, is to go to work. So we picked up the hatchets and axe, and soon had a wagon-load of young hemlocks and firs upon the fire, making a flame that dried the atmo- sphere all around our villa. In doing this, it was discovered that we were as supple of joint and limb as if we had slept in moonshine ; and when Triptolemus looked for his cold (which he had brought with him into the country), and couldn't 160 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. find it — and Mr. Butcut felt himself lighter and freer in body than he had done since he started — it would have puzzled any one, coming fresh among us, to believe that we had slept out all night in the open air, in a drenching rain. After breakfast, however, going beyond the en- campment, and seeing everything still wet and un- comfortable, the hearts of some of the party began to fail them — and it was proposed that we should strike our camp for home. " What ! and not explore the stream, after com- ing out all the way here for the purpose! — No — not so," said the artist, who wished to sketch the falls. " IS'ot so," repeated the Master, who wished to take some of the larger trout of the Blackwater. " And you mean, then, to keep us out here another night in the rain !" exclaimed Peter. " I won't sub- mit to it!" "I should rather think we have had enough of it," said Galen — the idea of another night of j-ain destroying his romance a little. " What do you say. Trip ? Are you satisfied ?" " Ugh — uh !" replied Trip ; but whether he meant yes or no, was only to be got at from his counte- nance — which was rather down. " It will read badly in our annals, gentlemen," observed the Master, "to go back without explo- ring the falls. Besides, I want to get in among the THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 161 large fish. We have caught nothing to call a trout yet!" " We have seen all the falls we are going to see," said Peter. " AVhat's your opinion as to that, Powell ?" " There are certainly larger falls, gentlemen, some- where down below us. These couldn't make all the roar we have heard out here — could they, Cona- way ?" "That's onpossible," replied Conway. " Gentlemen, I am really suffering very much out here — ^this climate don't agree with me I" said Pe- ter, pathetically. "You look ill, But!" Peter smiled faintly at this. It was the first trace of anything of the kind that had illumined his coun- tenance since day dawned. The reader will perceive, from the above conver- sation — which will serve as a sample of a very con- siderable discussion, involving the breaking up of the expedition at this point — that some of us bad enough of the wilderness. Although we were all perfectly unharmed by the exposure of the last night, yet the recollection of it affected the mind unpleasantly, and suggested visions of the comfort of Towers's hostel, which made against any very strong wish to remain out another night — such night in our Blackwater villa. But the secret of this desire to leave was attributable to the fact that 162 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. the sun had not yet risen high enough to clear the hilltops, and disperse the mists and fogs of the morning, which after such a night of rain, had en- veloped everywhere the beautiful world around. Let but the sun shine awhile, and the glory of the rhododendron — the beauty of light and shade — the splendor of the living green of the wild — the sheen and the sparkle of the waters — the summer- morning breeze — the song of the birds — all the glories of the month of June in the mountains — all these must enter into the heart, and bring gladness to despair itself As it was, the Master and the Signer rather had But, and Galen, and Trip, in their power ; for the two hunters, it was very evident, were keen-set for the exploration of the falls. No one up here knew anything about these falls, other than the conjecture of their existence : at any rate, there was no known man who had seen them. The pride of discovery, therefore, operated on the hunt- ers ; and it was apparent that all Andante and the Master had to do, was to say the word, and they couldn't be bribed to go back. However, the sun began to shine out about this time, breaking through the mists of the valley ; and it was agreed that the exploring party should go out, while the others would amuse themselves fishing or shooting in the neighborhood of the camp, and, if they tired of that, occupy themselves in ornamenting our villa, and in improving its sleeping-apartment with a roof — so THE FALLS OF THE BLA.CKWATER. 163 tliat, in case we abode here another night, we might be able to sleep without being drenched with the rain. In accordance with this arrangement, the Master and the aitist, with Powell and Conway, prepared themselves for the day, and set out on their enter- prise of discovery. The heavens seemed to favor us, for we had scarce yet filed into the stream, when the sun broke through the vapor of the valley and lit up the windings of the little river, until it shone all resplendent of gold, and amber, and snow-white foam. It was as if some celestial light had sud- denly illumined the dripping and cheerless Canaan, and we went " On our way attended By the vision splendid." Some short distance below the camp, when in the middle of a small, grassy island, we saw a large doe standing about fifty yards below us, among a group of rocks in tlie middle of the stream, where she was browsing upon the moss. Presently she saw us, and raised her head, standing motionless and lost in wonder — irresolute as Ariadne when she was about to fly. "She has fawns," whispered Powell, "back in the laurel, and has left them for a while, to come down into the river to drink, and eat the moss upon the rocks." " Don't stir," whispered Conway. " Keep still as 164 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. you can, till I go back to the camp and get my rifle. It's an elegant shot !" The Master clapped his hands, and the deer bound- ed in about two leaps to the bank of the river, and disappeared — vanished. " ISTo, Conway," said the Master, " you wouldn't kill that beautiful creature, in cold blood !" "We hunters," replied the old forester, in some amazement, " don't think about their beauty, Mr. Philips ; it's their meat we look at." " It's as well not to have shot it, Conaway," said Powell. " She has fawns over there in the laurel." " How do you know that ?" asked the Signor. "Why, come down to the place, and I'll show you." We moved down to the rocks and halted. " You see," said Powell, "here are the tracks of that deer coming -into the water, and here they are going out. That shows, you see, that she went out the same way she came in." "Yes." " You observed she turned round to jump out of the river." "Yes." "Well, we hunters reason from this, that she must have fawns over here in the laurel, or she would have taken out on the other side — which was natural, as she was standing with her head that way. What made her turn to get out the same way THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 165 she came in? Something turned her; and as it is about the time now they have their fawns, I say it was to get back to them." "The reasoning's good," replied the Signor. " I am satisfied," observed the Master, " and have learned a little more of the lore of the forest than I knew before." " If it was worth while," said Powell, " I would go into the laurel and get the fawns for you. But if there is anything I don't like, it is laurel." Of course, we had no idea of encumbering our- selves with the fawns ; so we pursued our way down the stream — now up to our knees in the water — now stooping under some great tree that had fallen across the stream — again along the banks, as they presented a better footway — now through the little meadows of luxuriant grass that skirted the shores of the stream — over islands of great rocks — break- ing into the laurel to get round some hanging cliffs — sometimes stepping on a slippery stone, and go- ing down soused all over in the water — until at length, some two miles below our camp, we came to the second falls. These are twelve feet high — a clear pitch, and in the shape of a horseshoe. The pool below them looked deep and dark, spotted with flakes of white foam and bubbles, and no doubt contained some" large-sized trout. We did not stop, however, to test it, but proceeded on our course. The sun by this time had lisen high above the 166 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. mountains, and was shining down upon the Canaan w^ith all his refulgence. The river was ever turning in its course, and every few moments some new charm of scenery was given to our view. The at- mosphere was soft and pleasantly warm, and the breeze gently fanned the trees. The wilderness was rich everywhere with hues of all dyes, and the banks of the river gleamed for miles with the flowers of the rhododendron. A scene of more enchantment it would be difficult to imagine. The forest with its hues of all shades of green — the river of delicate amber, filled with flakes of snow-white foam — and the splendor of the rhododendron everywhere in your eye. Picture all this in the mind — then remember that you were far beyond the limits of the world you had known — and say, was it of heaven, or was it of earth ! Such pure, unalloyed charm of soul as we felt that morning, it would be worth any hardship to enjoy. ISTo disturbing thought had any place in the mind. It seemed that we had entered into a new existence, that was one of some land of vision. As for the world we had left, it was as unknown to our thoughts as if we had never heard of it ; it was absolutely lapsed from all memory, and nothing but the beauty and the bliss of the imtrodden Canaan entered into our hearts. ' As for myself — without pretending to speak at all for the Master, or the Signer, or the two hunters THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 167 ■ — I am certain I had no idea of having ever been born of woman — no idea of having ever known a passion of mortal joy or sorrow : I was some crea- tion of an undiscovered paradise (hitherto undreamed of even) altogether, for those few hours of a new eouL And it seems to me now, when I revert my thoughts to that morning's exploration of the Black- water, that all the divinities of old fable must have had their dwelling-place out there ; that surely Pan and Faunus dwelt in those wilds ; that Diana lived there, and Latmos, on whose top she nightly kissed the boy Endymion, was the mountain that bordered the Black water ; that Yenus — she of the sea — Anadyomene, sometimes left the sea-foam and reposed her charms in the amber flow of the river; that Diana the huntress, with all her attendant nymphs, pursued those beautiful deer I saw ; that the naiads dwelt in the streams^ and the sylphs lived in the air, and the dryads and hamadryads in the woods around ; that Egeria had her grotto nowhere else but in the Canaan — all the beautiful creations of old poesy, the spirits or gods that now "No longer live in the faith of reason," — all were around me in the unknown wild — " The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty. That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and watery depths." 168 THE BLACK WATER CHRONICLE. — Sometimes the fancy has possessed me that I saw Undine sitting in all her beauty by the foam of the little Niagara, the most beautiful of all the falls. Sometimes, too, I have seen Bonny Kil- meney — who was " As pure as pure could be" — sleeping on the purple and gold-cushioned rocks, even as the Shepherd Poet has so exquisitely cre- ated her — her bosom heaped with flowers, and love- ly beings of the spirit world infusing their thoughts of heaven into her spotless soul — her " Joup of the lilly sheen, Her bonny snood of the birk sae green, And those roses, the fairest that ever were seen." All these images, and many more innumerable, of the creations of the genius of mankind, are asso- ciated in my mind, henceforth and for ever, with the Blackwater; and although I am fully aware that in here giving expression to these fancies, I run some little risk of stamping this historic narra- tive with the character of fiction, yet the judicious reader will observe that this chronicle was intended in its inception to be an impress of the body and soul of the expedition — the motions and affections of the mind were to be recorded, as well as the mo- tions and affections of the body — therefore he will see that it is all in keeping with the high aim of our undertaking. In accordance, then, with this THE FAXLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 169 just view of things, I have no hesitation in writing it down here, that the Avhole expedition felt them- selves in a paradise all the morning; and I will take this occasion to observe in regard to myself especially, that I know something of the joys of this world — have had my reasonable share, and more too, of the joy that comes of passion — but that perfect bliss of the soul — that feeling of entire happiness, which has no taint of our mortal lot in it — which is beatific, such as an angel ever lives in, I never had any distinct idea of — never anything but a glimmering, vague, mystified conjecture of, until I felt the heaven of that morning down the exquisite stream. The reader no doubt is a little startled at this apparent extravagance, but let him restrain him- self. It is all true, every word of it — as near as any felicities of the English language will convey a meaning ; and although he may deem the brain of the chronicler of the expedition a little turned (by thunder may be), yet I call confidently upon Mr. Butcut, upon Adolphus, upon the Master of St. Philip's, upon Triptolemus Todd, Esq., upon the Signor, and the two hunters, to say if it does not but poorly convey to their minds the feelings they experienced. Why, Mr. Butcut, forgetful of all his sufferings, grows enthusiastic when he thinks of the Blackwater, even at this day; and Trip chuckles from ear to ear, with a joyous ugh — uli ! 170 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. if you but point your finger in the direction of the Alleganies ! While we have stopped to dilate a little on the heavenly delights of the Canaan, the exploring ex- pedition did not stop, but wound its way down the bed of the stream ; and presently turning a rocky promontory that jutted the mountain side, the Blackwater, some hundred yards ahead, seemed to have disappeared entirely from the face of the earth, leaving nothing visible down the chasm through which it vanished, but the tops of fir-trees and hemlocks — and there stood on the perilous edge of a foaming precipice, on a broad rock high above the flood, the Signor Andante (who had gone a-head), demeaning himself like one who had lost his senses, his arms stretched out wide before him, and at the top of his voice (which couldn't be heard for the roar and tumult around him), pouring forth certain extravagant and very excited utter- ances ; all that could be made out of which, as the rest drew close to his side, was something or other about " The cataract of Lodore Pealing its orisons," and other fragments of sublime madness about cat- aracts and waterfalls, to be found at large in the writings of the higher bards. Not stopping at all to benefit by the poetic and otherwise inspired outpouring of the wild and appa- THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 171 rently maddened artist, thus venting himself to the admiring rocks and mountains and tumbling waters around, the expedition stepped out upon the fur- thest verge and very pinnacle of the foaming bat- tlements, and gazed upon the sight, so wondrous and so wild, thus presented to their astonished ejes. No wonder that the Signor demeaned himself with so wild a joj : for "All of wonderful and wild, Had rapture for the artist child ;" and perhaps in all this broad land of ours, whose wonders are not yet half revealed, no scene more beautifully grand ever broke on the eye of poet or painter, historian or forester. The Blackwater here evidently breaks its way sheer down through one of the ribs of the backbone of the Alleganies. The chasm through which the river forces itself thus headlong tumultuous down, is just wide enough to contain the actual breadth of the stream. On either side, the mountains rise up, almost a perpen- dicular ascent, to the height of some six hundred feet. They are covered down their sides, to the very edge of the river, with the noblest of firs and hemlocks, and as far as the eye can see, with the laurel in all its most luxuriant growth — befitting undergrowth to such noble growth of forest, where every here and there some more towering and vast Balsam fir, shows his grand head, like 172 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. " Caraetacus in act to rally his host." From the brink of the falls, where we now stand, it is a clear pitch of some forty feet. Below, the water is received in a large bowl of some fifteen or twenty feet in depth, and some sixty or eighty feet across. Beyond this, the stream runs narrow for a short distance, bound in by huge masses of rock — some of them cubes of twenty feet — then pitches down another fall of some thirty feet of shelving descent — then on down among other great rocks, laying about in every variety of shape and size — all the time falling by leaps of more or less descent, until it comes to something like its usual level of running before it begins the pitch down the moun- tain. This level of the stream, however, is but " The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below ;" for it leads you to a second large fall, a clear pitch again of some forty feet. From the top of this you look down some two hundred feet more of such shelving falls and leaping descent, as we have de- scribed above, until you come again to another short level of the stream. This, in its turn, is the approach to another large fall. Here the river makes a clear leap again of about some thirty feet, into another deep basin ; and looking on below you, you see some two hundred feet or more of like shelving falls and rapid rush-down of the stream, as followed upon the other large falls. THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 173 Getting down below all these, the river heaving now tumbled headlong down some six hundred l